American reggae band Stick Figure decided to run an experiment earlier this year when they released tickets for their Sacred Sands Summer Tour 2024.
Hoping to make their tour as fan-friendly as possible, the band leader Scott Woodruff and administrators Thomas Cussins and Marina Petros at Ineffable Music Group has decided to offer refunds to fans who bought tickets for the tour but were unable to make the show.
“Since the tour involved several large-scale arenas with some of the biggest supporters in the world,” the band had to agree to cover the cost of the returns, Cussins explained.
Refunds are rarely allowed in the concert industry, and promoters have long been loathe to offer refund options to fans, worried that a rush of last-minute refunds could lead to big losses for shows previously considered sellouts. But the problem with the “all sales are final” model, Cussins explained, is that fans may be reluctant to buy tickets when they go on sale if they're worried about their availability months later.
A refund policy can make fans feel more confident about their purchase, explained Cussins who worked with Petros to develop the rules for the first Stick Figure refund policy. In order for the band to recoup the cost of refunds and sell refunded tickets to new fans, the band has requested that all refund requests be submitted up to 10 days prior to a show. In order to prevent scalpers from taking advantage of the refund policy, tickets listed on secondary market sites such as Stubhub have been excluded from the offer.
“Enforcing this second rule was challenging and some tickets intended for resale likely slipped through the cracks,” Cussins said. “However, on the whole, everyone acted in good faith and used this program as they should.”
The band ultimately sold 135,446 tickets for the 16-date Sacred Sands tour and gave 750 refunds, equal to about $77,852.24, or 0.55% of the proceeds from the 2024 tour.
“These numbers clearly show that this is a successful formula for a band,” explains Cussins. “As this tour was largely sold out, almost all of the refundable tickets were resold. Even in the case of a tour with fewer guests, this loss would be worth it based on the statistics from our post-tour ticket buyer survey.”
According to the survey, 65% of buyers were aware of the refund policy, and of those who were aware, 82.3% said the band's refund policy made them feel more comfortable buying tickets.
“There is a strong case that losing less than 1% of tickets later is still worth the overall boost in consumer confidence,” Cussins concludes.
Based on their experience, Cussins noted that promoters, venues and artists could improve the ticketing ecosystem by offering refunds to “verified fans (not resellers) up to 14 days before a show, with the option to extended to 7 days as determined by the stakeholders,” says Cussins.
That doesn't mean taking an aggressive stance against reselling, but allowing the practice “with a few guidelines to prevent abuse,” such as speculative ticketing, where a reseller lists a ticket they haven't already bought. Abuse and price gouging can be curbed through careful ticketing practices and market monitoring, combined with dynamic pricing models that keep prices affordable on the secondary market, Cussins said.
“Adding the security of a refund option,” on top of the secondary market reforms above, concludes Cussins, “will increase consumer confidence and lead to more early ticket sales, which limits risk for bands, venues and supporters”.
