MEMBERSHIP FEES 2025
The STAR Council has carefully considered membership fees for 2025 alongside STAR’s budget for the year which shows an increase in operating costs of 16.2% from 2024, including some one-off costs for 2025. We're pleased to report that the increase in Membership Fees for 2025 will be below this figure for all members. This increase in budget represents the continuing growth of STAR’s work and the resource to support that. In 2025, we will be recruiting a new member of staff who will split their time between supporting the administration of STAR and supplementing our small, dispute resolution team. We will also be changing our management of disputes onto a new and better CRM system, incurring some one-off migration costs, and moving into a slightly larger office to accommodate the increased team. In the last year, the Council has undertaken a benchmarking exercise to ensure staff salaries are in line with industry standards in both the ticketing and dispute resolution sectors as well as a review of benefits. This is to help underpin both future recruitment and staff retention. The budget also includes one-off provision for external costs to help raise STAR's profile, improving industry and consumer awareness, and to support the planned update to the STAR Code of Practice which will include changes resulting from the post-pandemic review and the inclusion of Ticket Protection products.
The Council has put a contingency and reserves policy in place to maintain a sufficient balance to protect the organisation against unexpected changes, with any year-end surplus above this amount released to contribute to the following year's expenditure. The 2025 budget increase will be recovered partly through the use of surplus funds from 2024, when parts of the budget were not spent with recruitment of an additional member of staff deferred until 2025, and partly through a through an increase in Membership Fees. There will be an increase of around 7.6% across the board, except for the top two tiers of Full Membership where there will be a 12.6% increase. This difference continues our aim of better apportioning incoming fees to those top tiers, from which the most disputes reaching STAR’s ADR service originate.
STAR’s dispute work continues to be a significant priority, with 2024 having been another busy year. Our work in other areas continues as well, especially as we look ahead at the possibility of new legislation in our sector following a government consultation, the publication of which we are currently awaiting.
AGM & TICKETING SEMINAR
We are pleased that plans are in place for us to return to the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells Theatre for our annual seminar, preceded by the AGM. This will take place on Wednesday 16 July from midday onwards. The STAR Council has already started to discuss a great programme for the afternoon, but are keen to hear from members about any topics they would particularly like to be discussed during the afternoon.
