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Following is a question by the Hon Leung Kwok-hung and a written reply by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Tsang Tak-sing, in the Legislative Council today (June 24):
Question:
Quite a number of members of the public have complained to me that in recent years, organisers of concerts held in Hong Kong Coliseum, Kowloonbay International Trade and Exhibition Centre, Queen Elizabeth Stadium and AsiaWorld-Expo allocated large quantities of admission tickets of the concerts for sponsors' consignment or for priority booking by holders of specified credit cards, with the result that only small quantities of admission tickets were available for sale to the public through Urban Ticketing System (URBTIX) or Hong Kong Ticketing. These members of the public have also complained that quite a number of lawbreakers openly sold admission tickets for profit at prices two to three times higher than the original prices on the Internet or outside the aforesaid venues, and some even sold fake admission tickets. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) given that as indicated in a paper submitted by the authorities to the Central and Western District Council in August 2012, the terms and conditions of hire for Hong Kong Coliseum and Queen Elizabeth Stadium provided that for all programmes held in these venues (including concerts), the total number of consignment tickets in each event corresponding to any ticket prices set out in the approved ticket price list must not exceed 80 per cent of the total numbers of seats specified for such ticket prices on the approved seating plan of the event, whether the authorities have revised this percentage; if they have, of the latest percentage;
(2) among the admission tickets sold for the concerts given by local artistes or groups in Hong Kong Coliseum in the past five years, of the numbers and percentages of the tickets sold through URBTIX, and set out the relevant information by name of concert in table 1;
(3) whether it will immediately incorporate provisions into the terms and conditions for hiring Hong Kong Coliseum and Queen Elizabeth Stadium to require that all admission tickets of the concerts held by hirers in these two venues must be sold through URBTIX rather than being allocated for sponsors' consignment or for priority booking by holders of specified credit cards, so as to avoid causing unfairness to those members of the public who are not holders of the relevant credit cards; if it will, when it will do so; if not, the reasons for that;
(4) whether the authorities deployed any personnel in the past five years to investigate if there were lawbreakers engaged in the scalping of concert admission tickets through various auction web sites or mobile phone software platforms and outside Hong Kong Coliseum; if they did, of the findings; if not, whether the authorities will immediately deploy personnel to conduct such an investigation; and
(5) of the respective numbers of persons arrested and prosecuted by the authorities in the past five years for engaging in the following activities: (i) scalping of concert admission tickets through auction web sites and mobile phone software platforms, (ii) scalping of concert admission tickets outside Hong Kong Coliseum, (iii) selling of fake concert admission tickets through auction web sites and mobile phone software platform, and (iv) selling of fake concert admission tickets outside Hong Kong Coliseum?
President,
My reply to various parts of the question is as follows:
(1) and (3) According to the Terms and Conditions of Hire of the Hong Kong Coliseum (HKC) and the Queen Elizabeth Stadium (QES), a hirer organising paid-admission event has the freedom to choose the Urban Ticketing System (URBTIX) or assigning other ticketing agent to sell tickets for the event. If a hirer chooses URBTIX for the sale of tickets, the total number of all consignment tickets to be issued in any price category of the approved ticket price scale for a particular performance shall not exceed 80 per cent of the total number of seats as shown in the approved seating plan for that price category for that performance. In other words, the hirer concerned is required to provide at least 20 per cent of the seats for each price category for open sale. The term is still effective without any change. A hirer who chooses to assign other ticketing agent to sell tickets can decide on his own the proportion of tickets for open sale according to the ticketing strategy for the event.
Based on the free market principle, hirers of performance venues should be free to choose between URBTIX and other channels they considered appropriate and flexible to sell tickets for the event. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) will not make it mandatory for hirers of its performance venues (including the HKC and the QES) to use any particular ticketing channel or agent for the sale of tickets. The above ceiling on the proportion of consignment tickets applicable to hirers of the HKC and the QES who choose to sell tickets through URBTIX has taken account of hirers' needs in devising their ticketing strategies, while ensuring that a certain number of tickets is available for purchase by members of the public through URBTIX.
(2) A list of concerts given in the past five years by local artistes or groups in the HKC of which tickets were sold through URBTIX is at Annex. The overall figures for the above concert tickets sold through URBTIX are set out in table 2.
(4) According to the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (Cap. 132) and its subsidiary legislation, no person shall sell any article within the area of the performance venues under the LCSD without authorisation. During the period when concerts are held in the HKC, additional venue staff and security staff will be deployed to patrol the area. They will advise anyone found engaging in the resale of tickets within such area to cease the activity and leave the venue. Assistance will be sought from the Police as and when necessary.
As for any other places of public entertainment licensed under the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance (Cap. 172), such as cinemas, any person who sells, or offers or exhibits or has in his possession for sale, or solicits the purchase of, any ticket or voucher at a price exceeding the amount fixed for such a ticket or voucher shall be guilty of an offence. The Police will follow up on reported cases about ticket scalping and take enforcement actions as appropriate in accordance with the law.
The Government has been appealing to the public to purchase tickets through proper channels for the avoidance of loss from fraudulent activities. Buying unauthorised tickets through unofficial channels will carry certain risks and encourage ticket scalping activities. The "Terms and Conditions of Sale of Tickets" and "Notice to Ticket Buyers" of URBTIX specify that URBTIX has never authorised anybody to make alternative arrangements other than designated venues or channels for the sale of its tickets. The Government will keep monitoring the situation closely.
(5) The Police have not maintained a breakdown of the number of arrests and prosecutions for scalping tickets and selling fake tickets.
Ends/Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Issued at HKT 12:18
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