When Legislation Meets the Ticket Office

Originally passed in 2017, the Ontario Ticket Sales Act in Canada was amended earlier this year to ban the resale of tickets above “the total price paid when the ticket was purchased from the primary seller, plus any applicable fees, service charges and taxes charged by the secondary seller or operator of a secondary ticketing platform.” Additional changes, including pre-sale disclosures on maximum capacity, batches and the total number of tickets available for sale, will be enacted upon proclamation by the province’s lieutenant governor. Faced with this updated legislation, members of the INTIX regional group Ontario Professional Ticketing Association (OPTA) are demonstrating the value of turning to industry colleagues to share knowledge and find solutions. Requirements can fit neatly onto a government webpage. Putting them into practice inside a ticketing operation can be considerably more complicated, especially when the legislation doesn’t address every scenario a ticketing professional might encounter. And that is where the questions begin. OPTA members work for venues and organizations of different sizes and genres, and they use a variety of ticketing platforms with different capabilities. Their ticketing operations vary too. So, something relatively simple to implement for one organization, like breaking out the tax on a ticket, may be more complicated for another. When members recently came together to discuss the legislation, the conversation quickly moved from what the act says to what its requirements mean in practice. How are you disclosing the total ticket price and providing a separately itemized receipt of any applicable fees, service charges and taxes? What happens when a ticket is combined with a charitable donation, capital campaign funds or other non-ticket item? Members also discussed the need to ensure pricing information appears on all tickets, including those already sold. Another consideration is how the legislation’s requirements can be implemented across ticketing platforms that don’t all work the same way. Some ticketing systems allow organizations to build taxes and other charges into separate price layers and display them at different points in the purchase process. Accomplishing something similar on another platform could require significant changes to how tickets and events are built. Scenarios like these show why having an industry community to turn to is so important. During the OPTA discussion, members compared how their organizations and ticketing systems handle different situations. They shared issues their teams had encountered and approaches they were considering. Some had experience interacting with provincial officials and could share what they had learned from that process with the group. The meeting was an opportunity to compare notes and identify issues worth investigating, not to establish a single interpretation of the legislation. “This is not legal advice; talk to your legal department or legal counsel,” was a reminder heard often during the discussion. That distinction is part of what makes conversations like this useful. Government legislation can establish requirements, but it cannot anticipate how the rules will intersect with every venue, event, ticket type or technology. One organization’s solution may not work for another, but knowing how a ticketing peer approached the same question can provide a useful starting point. The benefits of that exchange extend well beyond Ontario. Ticketing professionals everywhere have to respond as legislation and industry practices change. Technology can provide solutions while consumer expectations continue to evolve. Sometimes there will be clear instructions for what comes next. Other times, figuring out the path forward starts with talking to someone who is working through the same challenges while continuing to provide a great patron experience. That’s when a professional network becomes invaluable. The answers may not always be obvious or the same for everyone. But as OPTA members are finding, when the legislation doesn’t answer every question, there is much to be gained from asking others who are doing the same work. You May Also Like The Story of OPTA: 35 Years of Growth, Connection and Impact Growing Together: The Power of Community in Ticketing Careers Want news like this delivered to your inbox weekly? Subscribe to the Access Weekly newsletter , your ticket to industry excellence.