Vivendi takes on Twickets after strong 2016

Vivendi grew income from ticketing by nearly 12% in 2016, increasing revenues to €52 million in a strong year for its three ticketing businesses.

Vivendi Ticketing – a division, comprising See Tickets (UK), See Tickets US and France’s Digitick, of the French conglomerate’s Vivendi Village subsidiary – saw a “significant” improvement in income from operations, increasing 11.8% on 2015.

Vivendi Village, which also incorporates live event producer Vivendi Talents&Live and Vivendi’s music venues, including the Olympia in Paris and four new venues in Africa, grew turnover 10.9% – although its income fell from +€10m to -€7m, negatively affected by the €4m acquisition of Flavorus from SFX and the launch of original mobile video platform Studio+.

Following Vivendi Ticketing CEO Rob Wilmshurst’s appearance at last week’s UK ticket abuse inquiry, the company has also announced the launch of Fan2Fan, its first ticket resale platform.

“It is time to build trust and pricing certainty into the secondary market”

Described as a “legitimate, price-controlled […] system for fans”, Fan2Fan is an ‘ethical’ ticket exchange in the mould of Twickets, Vibe Tickets and Scarlet Mist. It will enable those with unwanted tickets to shows listed on See Tickets UK to resell them for no more than 5% of the original price.

“It is time to build trust and pricing certainty into the secondary market,” comments Wilmshurst. “The Fan2Fan platform is being developed with the support of the artist community, and it will make the market fairer and more ethical. I’m optimistic that our regulated platform for reselling and buying tickets will have a positive effect on the entertainment ticketing industry.”

FanFair Alliance’s Adam Webb adds: “Fan2Fan is a welcome addition to the market. See Tickets is a supporter of the FanFair Alliance, and this is yet another example of a ticketing company demonstrating leadership by promoting face value exchange instead of resale profiteering.”

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