Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism strengthens crackdown on 5 million won overcharges for Lim Young-woong concert tickets
Going forward, anyone who resells tickets to concerts or sports events for commercial purposes at a premium, regardless of whether or not they used a macro program, will be subject to criminal punishment.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (Chairman Yoo Cheol-hwan, hereinafter referred to as the National Human Rights Commission) prepared a plan to “Eradicate Illegal Transactions in Performance and Sports Tickets” containing the above-mentioned contents and recommended institutional improvements to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
□ Recently, tickets for large events such as concerts by famous singers or special sports games have been traded for millions of won through second-hand trading platforms, and so-called ‘scalping’ has been raised as a social problem. In fact, tickets for Lim Young-woong’s concert were traded online at a price of over 5 million won at the end of last year.
Ticket scalpers are becoming more specialized and organized, using macro programs to secure seats and then reselling them on second-hand ticket trading platforms immediately after they are sold.
Macro programs are programs designed to perform specific tasks repeatedly, and are mainly used to automatically process repetitive tasks.
This year, the Performance Act and the National Sports Promotion Act established grounds for sanctioning ticket sales, but there was a limitation in that they were ineffective because they could only be punished when macro programs were used.
Accordingly, on the 26th of last month, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea decided that it was necessary to improve the system so that ticket scalping could be punished regardless of whether macro programs were used.
Specifically, ▲regardless of whether or not macros are used, a blanket ban on the act of trading tickets at a premium, ▲establishing new confiscation and collection regulations for profits from ticket scalping, ▲raising the level of criminal punishment such as fines for violations, and ▲differentiating punishment according to the degree of violation were recommended to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to drastically reduce the expected profits in case of violations.
□ In addition, the standard for determining ticket fraud was set as the ‘ticket list price’, so that reselling at a higher price would be considered fraudulent selling, and the appropriate agency to handle reports of ticket scalping was designated to clearly establish the basis for carrying out the work.
□ National Human Rights Commission Chairman Yoo Cheol-hwan stated, “The increase in ticket prices due to scalping not only deprives the general public, who are the actual consumers of performances and games, of the opportunity to watch them, but also acts as a factor that hinders the growth of the cultural and sports industry in the long term.”
He added, “I hope that this system improvement will create a proper performance and sports competition culture, provide citizens with opportunities to enjoy balanced leisure activities, and serve as an opportunity for the cultural and sports industry to develop further.”
Editor. Hong Se-yeong
