Limitations and requirements imposed on ticket brokers for events at Fort Regent (FOI)

​Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting information pertaining to Fort Regent Leisure Centre, as a publicly funded venue owned by the States of Jersey. Specifically, I am requesting information on all contracts, documents, ticket manifests, ticket distribution charts, ticket allotment summaries, sponsorship and marketing agreements for events held at the venue over the last 12 months. This is to include anything relating to:

A. 

Proportion of tickets which were made available to the public, ticket brokers, sponsors, private organisations and public organisations;

B. 

The total number of tickets available for every event and how they were sold and / or distributed. This includes any draft distribution sheets and plans that were incorporated in fact or by reference into the final distribution sheets;

C. 

Limitations or requirements imposed on the resale of tickets;

D. 

Limitations or requirements imposed on the minimum price of resale tickets, including price floors and ceilings;

E.

Limitations or requirements imposed on the channels, platforms and websites on which tickets could be resold;

F.

Limitations or requirements imposed on purchasing tickets, including exclusivity agreements;

G.

Any contracts for exclusive rights of resale;

H.

Any documents mentioning requirements that ticket brokers commit to reinvesting money earned from ticket resale back into purchasing future tickets from the team;

I.

Any contracts guaranteeing ticket brokers tickets, whether that guarantee was conditional or unconditional; and

J. 

Revenue sharing agreements between the venue and third parties.

For the purposes of this letter a “ticket broker” is defined as anyone, individually or as a business, who acquired tickets to an event, by any means, for purposes of resale.

If you expect a significant delay in responding to or in fulfilling this request, please let me know when I can expect this information. If you deny this request or any part of it, please cite each specific statutory exemption that you feel justifies the refusal to release the information, and notify me of any appeal procedures that are available under the law.

Response

This request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. 

Over the last twelve months, 14 ticketed events have been held at Fort Regent. For 12 of these events, an external promoter was used to market the tickets and Fort Regent was appointed as ticket broker (ie to provide box office services). Tickets for two events were marketed by Fort Regent directly.

In regards to part A of the question, we do not hold all of the information requested.

In regards to the other parts of the question, we are not able to provide details for specific events, as this is commercially sensitive information and is exempt under Article 33 (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. However, the terms and conditions for tickets sold through the Fort Regent box office are common to all events, so we have provided the general position in relation to each point.  The information requested is provided below:

A. 

The proportion of tickets available to the public and other parties is determined by the promoter and will be different for each event. 

Fort Regent holds details of tickets it has sold as ticket broker (see point B below) but does not hold information on other tickets made available by the promoter.

B. 

Fort Regent holds information relating to sales through the box office where it has been appointed as ticket broker. Details for each event are shown in the table below.

C. 

The Conditions of Sale for tickets (printed on the reverse of the tickets) state the following:

• tickets may not be exchanged or money refunded unless the event is cancelled
  
• tickets are accepted for resale subject to venue and/or promoters tickets sold first. Resale cannot be guaranteed
  

D. 

Any tickets accepted for resale by Fort Regent are sold at face value.

E. 

Any tickets accepted for resale by Fort Regent are sold through the box office. The promoter would determine other avenues of resale.

F. 

The following booking conditions are stated on this website:

• tickets must be paid for at the time of booking, they are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged unless the event is cancelled.
  

Fort Regent has no exclusivity agreements in place relating to the purchase of tickets.

G. 

Any tickets accepted for resale by Fort Regent are sold through our box office. The usual resale commission is 5%, which is in line with the standard box office commission. There are no clauses in the agreements that refer to exclusive rights of resale.

H. 

Third party ticket brokers are not appointed by Fort Regent. Where Fort Regent has been appointed as a ticket broker there have been no examples of contracts requiring Fort Regent to reinvest money earned in the purchase of more tickets. Fort Regent is not always exclusively appointed as the ticket broker and other brokers may be used at the discretion of the promoter. Fort Regent has no visibility of these agreements.

I. 

Fort Regent’s standard contract with promoters includes a clause providing te free tickets for Fort Regent as ticket broker. These are used for competitions and marketing purposes. These tickets are put back on sale if the event sells out or the tickets are not used for marketing purposes.

J. 

Revenue sharing agreements were agreed in respect of five events in the last 12 months.

These allowed for an 80 / 20 split of revenue between the promoter and Fort Regent.

Exemption(s)

FOI exemption(s) applied: Article 33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Justification for exemption

Information relating to specific events or contracts with promoters is commercially sensitive. Any disclosure would be likely to harm the commercial interests of both Fort Regent and the third party promoter. The reasons for this are:

• disclosure would affect the ability of Fort Regent to negotiate future contracts with artists wishing to use Fort Regent. For example, if one event had poor ticket sales, a promoter of a similar event might be less willing to negotiate with Fort Regent if made aware of this
  
• Fort Regent works with a limited pool of promoters who are willing or able to bring artists to Jersey. If promoters were put off from working with Fort Regent due to the possibility of contractual arrangements being disclosed, this pool would be reduced further. This could lead to loss of revenue for the States of Jersey or a reduction in the range of events available at Fort Regent
  
• disclosure would put Fort Regent at a competitive disadvantage compared to private sector operators in the Channel Islands and UK
  

This exemption requires a public interest test to be carried out. Although there is an argument in favour of release on the grounds of transparency and openness, on balance this is outweighed by the risk of harm to the commercial interests of Fort Regent and external promoters who work with Fort Regent if the information were disclosed. Disclosure could also affect the number and range of events available at Fort Regent for the public to enjoy.