Viagogo Responds To UK Industry’s Call For Ticket Price Cap
Viagogo has responded to the latest call for a ticket resale price cap by UK (live) music bodies including LIVE, the Music Managers Forum, and the FanFair Alliance.
In an joint press release, these bodies pointed out that viagogo continued “to engage in misleading and potentially unlawful practices – even while the Government consults on introducing a price cap to crack down on abuses in the so-called secondary ticketing market.”
According to FanFair Alliance, there’s evidence of viagogo breaking UK consumer law by permitting professional touts to list tickets with non-existent seat numbers, non-existent row numbers, and wildly incorrect face values, as well as having tickets listed that aren’t even on official on sale yet, ie spec selling.
A viagogo spokesperson stated in response, “viagogo takes its obligations under the law seriously and is fully compliant in the UK and with the CMA order. “
This was confirmed by the CMA back in 2019, when it stated, “viagogo has now addressed the UK competition authority’s outstanding concerns about how it presents information.”
Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said at the time, “The viagogo website UK customers now visit is worlds apart from the one they faced before the CMA took action. Key information needed to make informed decisions before buying a ticket is now much clearer including on where you’ll sit in a venue and whether you might be turned away at the door.
“What is clearly not acceptable is the time it’s taken to get to this stage. Stronger consumer powers are required in the secondary ticketing sector and we will continue to work with the Government on the most effective way to achieve this.”
The latest viagogo statement continues, “Our policies prohibit speculative listings.
“Any alleged speculative listing that we identify as being speculative is removed from our platform in line with our policy. Sellers found to be in breach of our policy will be dealt with including permanent suspension from using our platform.
“We remain committed to operating a safe, transparent, and lawful marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets.”
As viagogo global MD Chris Miller told Pollstar in April 2024, spec selling was “against our terms and conditions. Anytime we get notified about it, we immediately go to the sellers asking for proof of purchase. If they can’t provide it, we take their listings down. We have ways for event organizers, and authorities to contact us on our website directly. They can use that when there are issues or concerns, and they have. We have a 50 million tickets on our website at any time all over the world, we’re an open marketplace. Do things slip through the cracks from time to time? Sure. But we have mechanisms in place to resolve this.”
And he added, “if we’re looking for a solution for that, it’s really about working together. We want to sell the tickets that have not sold at the box office, we’d like to help with that. We would like to sell out events. We do not want to prioritize a ticket from a seller that doesn’t have the same relationship with the box office. We would prefer to help sell the box office tickets. And if there is a resale market thereafter, fine.”
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