Tickets for seats at National Swiss-Wrestling and Alpine Festival going for CHF 800, instead of CHF 245

It is with some alarm that it has been discovered that tickets for seats at the National Swiss-Wrestling and Alpine Festival (Esaf), which is to take place between 23-25 August in the canton this year, are being sold for as much as CHF 1,600 for two, whereas the regular price for one seat is between CHF 150 and CHF 245.

Demand for tickets has been very high with as many as 180,000 people wanting tickets for the 4,000 available through public sale or lottery. Those who applied successfully were duly informed earlier this month. Others went to sponsors and various organisations, with some ending up for sale though outlets such as Ricardo.ch, but at much higher prices, as mentioned in the first paragraph. “Asking for CHF 1,600 for two tickets is just not on,” said Heinz Tännler, the chairman of the organising committee, who is also the cantonal director of finance.

The organising committee had been made aware of the selling of tickets at highly inflated prices at the end of last month and said they would contact those selling them, warning them, too, that they could make the tickets they sold invalid, Ricardo.ch duly passing on the message. Since this time the number of tickets sold in this way has dwindled. “Our intervention appears to have worked,” said Tännler, adding that it was not out of the question that other tickets might still be sold at highly inflated prices.

It appears Tännler’s criticism was directed mainly at those selling tickets through the Top Tickets account, the person behind this preferring to remain anonymous. He dismissed Tännler’s threats. “In a free market economy it is not illegal to buy tickets and then sell them on,” he insisted, admitting he did not buy the tickets,12 of them, through the lottery method, for which he had no patience, but from sponsors, local residents and individuals. “I am merely someone selling on tickets; I myself paid up to CHF 400 each for them. It is always the same; if I offer tickets below the asking price then I am lauded, when I sell them at higher prices, I am demonised,” he said, adding to how he had received e-mails criticising him for what he was doing. “It is up to the clients themselves. If anyone wants to pay these higher prices, it is up to them.”

As Cécile Thomi of the Consumer Protection Foundation mentioned, the selling of tickets at such inflated prices surely contravened laws relating to unfair competition. However, whether this would lead to anyone presenting such a ticket being refused entry was doubtful, a judge unlikely to uphold any such stipulation written in small print on the back of the tickets. As to how the organising committee was planning to examine tickets on entry, Tännler declined to comment. Thomi felt a solution was for an official selling-on of tickets site to be set up.