Fans holding tickets for Ed Sheeran’s UK stadium tour purchased through secondary ticketing site Viagogo were denied access to the first night in accordance with previously publicised plans to crack down on touts and inflated resale prices.
Joint promoters Kilimanjaro Live, DHP Family and AEG Presents have cancelled more than 10,000 tickets to the tour, which kicked off at Manchester’s Etihad stadium on 24 May. In July 2017, Kilimanjaro Live contacted ticket holders to remind them of the “very detailed” terms and conditions relating to entry and resale restrictions.
@viagogo tickets purchased from you for Ed Sheeran in Manchester - but they are invalid (see confirmation letter from promoter) and you aren’t responding to my emails. Please contact me to confirm my refund. pic.twitter.com/QpGUusEtOU
— Nic Pentelow (@NicPentelow) May 19, 2018
The promoters advised anyone with tickets bought through Viagogo to seek a refund through the site and gave them the opportunity to buy a new ticket at the face value of £150. The scheme is available in advance or on the day of the concert. Still, reportedly hundreds of fans were angry after being asked to buy new tickets for the concert at Etihad stadium when their Viagogo purchases were deemed invalid, the BBC reports.
Viagogo directed the BBC to its FAQ section, where it claims that concert promoters who deny entry to fans holding resold tickets are “highly unfair and in our view, unenforceable and illegal”.
Many fans pointed out that not everyone would have sufficient funds to pay £150 per ticket prior to receiving a refund from Viagogo. Kilimanjaro Live chief executive Stuart Galbraith told the BBC that anyone who can’t immediately afford to buy new tickets will be given the opportunity to purchase tickets for a different date.
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Galbraith said: “Everyone we’ve dealt with today – and we’ve dealt with hundreds – we’ve given them advice about how to receive refunds against their fraudulently traded tickets, and we’ve sold them face-value tickets. So we’ve achieved what Ed wanted us to.”
He gave the example of one customer who had paid £4000 for four tickets that purported to include a meet-and-greet with Sheeran — when no such option exists. Sheeran’s manager Stuart Camp said in a statement: “This one example perfectly highlights the need for some strong action from the government against profiteering secondary ticket marketplaces.”
Galbraith added: “Last night produced several interesting bits of evidence of mass flouting of consumer laws and we will be referring all of the information we have gathered to the Competitions and Mergers Authority and National Trading Standards for further investigation.”
Sheeran’s management advised anyone affected to seek instructions on FanFairAlliance.org and reminded fans that Twickets is the only authorised point of resale, as it caps prices at face value plus 10%. “Our whole process has been to try to deal with as much of this as possible in advance. We don’t want to inconvenience people queuing and, to be honest, we don’t want to deal with this ourselves on the day.”
In March, the Advertising Standards Authority took action against Viagogo, StubHub UK, Seatwave and GetMeIn! over the misleading presentation of pricing information on its websites. In April, the UK competition regulator said the website had ignored its demands to make changes and would be taken to court for breaching consumer protection laws.