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Ticket scalping in Hong Kong is just business and should not be overly regulated
Albert Cheng says the resale of tickets for concerts and sporting events is a common business practice that should be allowed to thrive in a free-market economy. Recent calls for more regulation go too far
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Tickets to stand-up comedian Dayo Wong Tze-wah’s show in July went on sale online last month. They were sold out almost immediately because touts snapped them up, forcing people to buy them at inflated prices. The surge of public anger has caught the government’s attention.
Wong himself has urged fans not to buy the resold tickets, and called for a crackdown on the scalpers. As always, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor put on a face of heeding the public’s concerns, and pledged last week to look into making ticket scalping illegal at venues run by the government, as well as the feasibility of adopting a “real name registration” system to curb the practice.
The government is blowing the matter out of proportion. To begin with, stand-up comedy shows and concerts are not basic necessities and have nothing to do with people’s livelihood. The government has other more important and urgent matters of public interest to attend to.
Furthermore, ticket scalping has been a long-standing business activity worldwide and is considered fair and common in all free-market economies.
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