Viagogo (stylised as lowercase viagogo) is an online ticket marketplace for ticket resale, currently under investigation by the UK's Trading Standards for illegal practices. The company, which was founded in London in 2006, has a network of more than 60 global websites with customers in 160 countries. Viagogo is backed by the venture capital investment firm Index Ventures as well as Brent Hoberman, the co-founder and former CEO of Lastminute.com and Lord Jacob Rothschild via his family interests. They have faced criticism for inflating ticket prices and their refusal to work with artists trying to prevent secondary resale and, on 30 May 2018, were referred to Trading Standards for persistent misleading advertising.
Video Viagogo
History
The company was founded in 2006 in London by Eric Baker, the co-founder of US-based StubHub. It was established to provide an online ticket marketplace that allows consumers to buy and sell tickets to sports, music, theatre and comedy events. Viagogo's launch included partnerships with Chelsea F.C. and Manchester United F.C. offering season ticket holders the chance to sell tickets to matches they could not attend to other club members, without having to lend their season card. Manchester United ended their commercial agreement with Viagogo in 2011.
In September 2013 Viagogo officially launched in Australia. The launch was accompanied by two new partnerships with Melbourne-based AFL clubs Collingwood FC and Richmond FC. The same month they commissioned research that revealed that Britons lost £50 million to ticket fraud over a 12-month period and 500,000 Australians have been the victims of ticket fraud, with 85% cases resulting from transactions on eBay and Gumtree.
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Partnerships
The company has partnerships with sports properties in football, cricket, rugby, tennis, and wrestling. Under British law, unauthorized re-selling of Premier League and other football tickets is illegal, a restriction introduced by the Government to prevent hooliganism. By working with the Premier League clubs to obtain official authorization, Viagogo is permitted to resell tickets to the clubs it works with.
Viagogo was the official ticket marketplace for the various music festivals in 2013 including the Isle of Wight Festival, the Boyzone Anniversary Tour, Benicassim Festival and Weekend Festival. In 2014, Viagogo partnered with SFX Entertainment and in 2015 they partnered with Soundwave. Ultra Beach Bali and Ultra Japan. In 2016, Viagogo was announced as the official ticketing partner of Ultra Singapore 2016.
In 2012 Viagogo extended its European ticketing agreement with multiplatform sports media company, ESPN.
Criticism
Although Viagogo offers some tickets at face value it is well known for vastly inflating prices for events. They have been accused of trying to manipulate online reviews after hundreds of people complained on Trustpilot that the company had ripped them off. They have also faced criticism after they resold charity tickets to an Ed Sheeran cancer benefit concert at highly inflated prices.
In February 2018, Viagogo was found to market tickets for a non-existent event of a famous Hungarian stand-up comedian for about twice the normal price.
In early 2011, Viagogo sold personalized tickets for the band Take That's 2011 tour to German customers. A number of people were not able to enter the concerts in Hamburg and Munich. A German court banned viagogo from claiming that the validity of the Take That tickets is "100% guaranteed".
They were involved in a legal battle with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) after they sold tickets the RFU had explicitly forbidden resale for profit. Viagogo lost the initial trial and an appeal in the lower courts in December 2011, resulting in the issuing of a Norwich Pharmacal Order.
In November 2012, fake tickets to the Mumford & Sons concert in Portsmouth with a face value of £23.50 were sold for up to £200 on Viagogo's secure marketplace. Viagogo responded in an interview with the BBC to say that this was a rare occurrence and all buyers would soon be offered a refund or tickets to a future concert.
In August 2017 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched legal action against Viagogo with "allegations it made false or misleading representations, and engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct by failing to disclose substantial fees included in the price of tickets."
In 2018 a large number of fake tickets were sold by Viagogo for Bruno Mars at $700 per ticket in Auckland New Zealand. The New Zealand commerce commission are investigating. A Class Action suit was filed against the company in Israel.
The company is the only ticket resale site to have refused to work with Arctic Monkeys and Ed Sheeran to prevent ticket touts reselling tickets for their tours.
In May 2018, the UK's Minister of State for Digital and Culture, Margot James, told BBC Radio 5 Live listeners planning to buy from secondary ticket sites, "don't choose Viagogo - they are the worst". She gave this advice after the Advertising Standards Authority asked National Trading Standards to investigate Viagogo's alleged breaches of UK advertising rules about making any additional fees clear.
Legal and government actions
This table lists known legal actions that Viagogo is/has been involved in.
Legislation
In the UK, Labour MP Sharon Hodgson's proposal that legislation be introduced to cap resell prices at face value +10% was rejected by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. After the company failed to appear before the Culture, Media And Sport select committee of the UK parliament in March 2017 Hodgson, accompanied by fellow committee member Nigel Adams, visited its London Headquarters, 71 Fenchurch Street, 7th, in July 2017 but the party was turned away.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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