European Court of Justice: Only conditional purchase price refunds for tickets

A voucher instead of money – a buyer of a concert ticket did not want to be satisfied with that. But the ECJ has contradicted: The consumer must expect that he cannot revoke the purchase contract.

Anyone who buys a concert ticket from a ticket agent via the Internet cannot revoke the purchase contract within 14 days. The European Court of Justice decided this.

A woman who had bought a concert ticket for a Peter Maffay concert from the ticket platform CTS Eventim had complained. The concert should take place in March 2020. However, it was canceled due to the corona pandemic. Eventim then sent her a voucher. But the woman wanted her money back. She said that she could revoke the purchase contract and finally sued the Bremen district court.

No right of withdrawal

Since European law was at stake, the court referred the case to the ECJ. He has now made it clear: If a consumer buys a ticket online from an intermediary like Eventim, he cannot return it within 14 days and have the purchase price refunded. It is therefore crucial that the economic risk also lies with the organizer if a ticket broker is involved.

There is also no right of withdrawal if the ticket was purchased directly from the organizer. Otherwise, since the beginning of the year, there has been a new legal situation regarding concert tickets. In the course of the corona pandemic, the legislator introduced a so-called “voucher solution” to help the hard-hit culture industry. If concerts were cancelled, organizers did not initially have to pay back the money for tickets, but could issue vouchers to buyers.

Since the beginning of the year reimbursement

Since the beginning of the year, if consumers have not redeemed the vouchers, they can return them and get a refund. The consumer advice centers have created sample letters for this purpose.

(File number C-96/21)