Nandu News reporter Zhong Xin On May 9, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission released a special report on the entertainment performance market, pointing out that in recent years, with the continuous enrichment of performance categories and the continued increase in consumer enthusiasm for watching performances, "platter" concerts have "injected water" , high refund fees, and many problems such as purchasing "pillar tickets" also emerged, seriously affecting the viewing experience of consumers, and named Damai.com for selling "pillar tickets" for the Phoenix Legend concert and "water injection" for Xu Meijing's concert ", Kunshan concert audiences requested refunds and other hot public events. At the same time, in response to the prominent problem of difficulty in refunding tickets and unreasonable refund and change policies, the article gave examples of JJ Lin’s recent concerts in different cities. Due to the inconsistent refund policies, it is easy to mislead consumers.
The report pointed out that the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission conducted an integrated analysis of relevant issues and found that the current difficulties in safeguarding rights for entertainment performances mainly focus on four aspects.
First of all, the difficulty of refunding tickets is prominent and the refund and change policy is unreasonable. According to the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Standardized Management of Large-scale Commercial Performance Activities to Promote the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Performance Market" jointly issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Public Security, large-scale commercial performance activities implement a real-name ticket purchase and real-name admission system, and performances are held Units should also establish a refund mechanism for large-scale performance events and formulate tiered refund charging standards. The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission found that performance organizers and ticketing platforms have set up strong real-name viewing and tiered refund policies based on this regulation. However, in the current practice process, the tiered refund policy still has high refund handling fees, and the same performance is not available in different places. The issue is that cities have different refund policies.
The article takes JJ Lin’s recent concert as an example. For the Suzhou concert on May 25, the refund handling fee is divided into 4 levels according to the time period: unconditional refund, 20% of the ticket price, 50% of the ticket price, and refunds are not supported. Calculated based on the ticket price of his concerts ranging from RMB 380 to RMB 1,880, the refund fee can range from a few hundred to nearly a thousand yuan. For the Harbin concert on June 22, refunds are divided into three levels according to time: unconditional refund, 30% of the ticket price, and no refund. There is no unconditional refund rule for Tianjin ’s concert on April 13. Refunds are divided into three levels according to time periods: 3% of the ticket price, 30% of the ticket price, and no refund. For concerts by the same singer, refund policies are not uniform in different regions, which can easily mislead consumers.
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission stated that it will no longer accept any refund applications about a week before the concert. The refund handling fees can easily reach hundreds or even thousands of yuan. The non-uniform and opaque refund handling fee standards for each concert have undoubtedly caused problems. While consumers pay the fare in advance, it also limits the consumer's right to refund the ticket and increases the burden on the consumer to refund the ticket. According to the relevant provisions of the "Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "Civil Code of the People's Republic of China", through the format Terms that restrict consumers’ rights and aggravate consumers’ obligations shall be invalid.
In addition, the article also takes the Zhang Jie concert in Shanghai on March 23 as an example, pointing out that due to the unreasonable refund time setting, consumers who purchased return tickets did not enjoy the same refund rights even though they paid the same price. There are cases where the same vote has different rights.
The article also pointed out that performance tickets under the strong real-name system cannot be transferred or donated. If there are unforeseen problems such as sudden illness, work or exam time conflicts, consumers cannot attend the performance and need to bear the corresponding economic losses. Faced with consumers' requests for refunds, the ticketing platform refused on the grounds that the concert tickets were scarce and timely. The inability to refund undoubtedly increased the burden on consumers.
Secondly, false propaganda and misleading consumers exist. Some concerts and music festivals use star power to attract fans in the early stage of promotion, but they constantly "inject water" during the actual performance, or use chat to delay the time, or let unpublicized bands take up a lot of performance time, which cannot be genuine. Many consumers cried out that they were deceived. The entertainers advertised at some concerts and music festivals do not match the actual performance, resulting in a gap between the actual performance and consumers' expectations, which to a certain extent violates consumers' right to know.
Furthermore, some tickets block the view, making it difficult for consumers to protect their rights. Some performances do not support consumers' self-selection of seats when selling tickets. Consumers are in a "blind box" state when purchasing performance tickets online, and can only know the seat number after purchasing the tickets. Under this circumstance, some consumers reported through online channels that they purchased "pillar tickets" and "wall tickets" with severely blocked seats and large blind spots. During the concert, "only the sound was heard but no one was seen", and the on-site viewing turned into a The "on-site viewing wall" and "on-site viewing column" have been replaced, which seriously affects consumers' viewing experience.
Finally, scalpers scalped votes and disrupted the market order. Although large-scale performances have implemented a strong real-name viewing system, many scalpers said that there are "internal" channels for entering identity information when selling tickets. In addition, some entities in the market will also bypass the obstacles of strong real-name by selling "relationship tickets" and "invitations". Such tickets are often expensive and seriously disrupt the normal order of the ticketing market. The strong real-name system is in play. Its effectiveness in combating scalpers needs to be improved. There are even scammers pretending to be scalpers or insiders, inducing consumers to conduct private transactions through Xianyu, WeChat, Weibo, etc., causing property losses.
In response to the above-mentioned rights protection difficulties, the article calls on ticketing platforms and organizers to strengthen their control over performance quality and consumer viewing experience; rationally formulate refund rules and standardize refund handling mechanisms; reasonably determine refund handling fees and make refund charging standards transparent. At the same time, it is recommended that consumers enhance their awareness of rights protection and keep good evidence materials. If disputes arise due to the organizer and affect the consumer experience, consumers can negotiate a refund with the organizer or complain to the relevant departments.
