Stop wealthy seat-holders’ big profits from reselling at Royal Albert Hall, peer says
A potential conflict of interest in the way the Royal Albert Hall is governed will allow wealthy individuals and companies to increase their opportunities to make big profits from seats they own at the charitable venue, according to a member of the House of Lords.
Peers are expected to vote this week on a proposal to avoid a conflict between the private interests of trustees who own seats and the RAH’s charitable status. The move has the support of the Charity Commission.
Robin Hodgson, who is tabling the amendment to the Royal Albert Hall bill, said the trustees were planning to “take more powers to themselves”, potentially creating “nice little earners” by selling unwanted seats on commercial events sites such as Viagogo.
The potential conflict of interest lies in the composition of the RAH’s council of trustees and the increasing practice of seat-holders – individuals and bodies that own 1,268 of the venue’s 5,272 seats – selling their tickets at inflated prices. The RAH hosts about 400 events a year, from the Proms to pop concerts.
The hall, which opened in 1871, was funded from the start in part by people who were allocated seats in return for investment. Today, seat-holders include companies, charities and individuals, some of whom have family ownership going back to the 19th century.
Seat-holders who do not wish to use their seats for a concert or event may return them to the hall’s box office for the face value of the ticket minus 10%. But in recent years, some seat-holders have resold tickets through third-party websites at much higher amounts.
In 2023, seat-holders’ tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert with a face value of £200 were being offered on a resale site for up to £6,000, prompting objections from the star. Seats for the Last Night of the Proms with a face value of £100 have been resold on commercial sites for more than £1,000.
Seat-holders do not have the right to use or sell their seats at all concerts and events. But the new bill gives the 25-strong council of trustees – 19 of whom are seat-holders – additional powers to decide which events are available to seat-holders. This raises the possibility that trustees could designate the most lucrative events open to seat-holders.
Lord Hodgson wrote a letter to all peers seeking their support for his amendment. He said: “The ownership of a seat has become a potential investment generating considerable profit for the seat-holder … It is clear that substantial sums are being earned by them.”
The inbuilt majority of seat-holders on the council of trustees gives rise to a situation that “plainly breaks the cardinal rule of charity trusteeship: that trustees must not benefit personally from decisions they take as trustees”.
Hodgson is proposing that a subcommittee of independent, non seat-holding trustees must approve any decision by the council on events, and that the sale of seat-holders’ tickets must go through the RAH box office rather than via commercial sites.
A letter from the Charity Commission to Hodgson earlier this month said the RAH’s “failure to resolve the potential conflict of interest to date is of significant concern”. The commission had made it clear that the RAH should “address the significant concerns that have been raised about its governance”.
Hodgson said the RAH was a “great national institution, home to many of the most iconic events in our nation’s cultural calendar”. But a “central tenet of charity law is that you must not benefit personally from decisions you take as a trustee of that charity”.
