TOKYO - Lawsuits, settlement payments and official resale platforms have done little to halt Japan's booming ticket scalping market, where sought-after concert and sporting event tickets are still routinely sold online at many times their original value.
The continued spread of high-priced resales has raised concerns among organizers, who warn that the growing cost of combating the practice could eventually be passed on to fans.
"I believed it was a legitimate place to trade tickets," a woman in her 20s who resold around 90 tickets for concerts by male idol groups told Kyodo News.
A few years ago, she bought hard-to-get tickets through a resale website. At first, she was only purchasing tickets for personal use, but after listing one for sale when she was suddenly unable to attend a concert, she gradually began reselling more on a regular basis.
Using prices posted by other sellers as a guide, she sometimes sold tickets for as much as 10 times their original value. The profits were then used to buy tickets through lotteries for future concerts, which she would again resell if she could not attend.
"I didn't want my favorite idols' concerts to have empty seats," she said.
Last year, however, organizers contacted her by email over her repeated reselling. After negotiations, she agreed to pay several million yen in settlement money.
"I only realized it was against the law after it became a serious problem," she said, lowering her head.
Japan enforced a law prohibiting the illegal resale of admission tickets in 2019, banning the repeated resale of tickets above face value without the consent of organizers.
But despite the legislation, the number of cases detected remains limited to around a dozen each year, while tickets for concerts and sporting events continue to be traded online at steep markups.
Industry officials say the persistence of the problem has forced organizers to invest heavily in countermeasures aimed at protecting fans and ensuring tickets are distributed fairly.
Many organizers now encourage the use of authorized resale services, allowing ticket holders who can no longer attend an event to transfer tickets at face value. The systems are intended to discourage scalping while preventing seats from going empty.
Unlike unofficial resale websites, however, authorized services generally charge fees to both sellers and buyers, often leaving users out of pocket.
Even Starto Entertainment Inc., the talent agency that launched an official resale service in June last year, continues to see tickets for performances by its affiliated acts traded at inflated prices on resale websites.
In March, a company organizing concerts for Starto Entertainment filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against a ticket resale website, seeking the return of profits allegedly earned through unauthorized sales.
"Our attempts to maintain affordable prices so that more fans can attend concerts are being openly undermined," a representative said.
Attorney Hiroyuki Nakajima, who represents the plaintiffs, warned that official resale systems require substantial operating costs, for things such as monitoring transactions and maintaining secure platforms.
"If illegal resales continue unchecked, organizers may have no choice but to pass those costs on to ticket prices," Nakajima said. "Ultimately, it will be the fans who follow the rules who suffer the consequences."
