UK govt rejects CMA’s calls to tighten resale laws
The UK government has rejected the recommendations of the British competition regulator to tighten laws around online ticket touting.
In a 2021 report, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed stronger rules to deal with illegal activity on non-price-capped secondary ticketing sites, including measures to clamp down on the bulk-buying of tickets as well as the practice of “speculative ticketing”, where sellers list tickets they don’t yet own.
Other suggestions included ensuring platforms are fully responsible for incorrect information about tickets that are listed for sale on their websites, and a new system of licensing for platforms that sell secondary tickets that would enable an authority to act quickly and issue sanctions.
However, in the government’s response, business secretary Kevin Hollinrake MP says he is “not convinced” by the need for additional legislative changes.
“I am not convinced that the additional costs that would fall on ticket buyers (as regulatory costs would be passed on) are justified by the degree of harm set out in your report,” says Hollinrake. “This is especially the case when we are already proposing to give the CMA additional administrative powers to protect consumers which the CMA could deploy in the secondary ticketing market.
“However, we propose to keep the position on maximum numbers of ticket resales under review as part of our ongoing monitoring of the legislative landscape in the ticketing market and in the light of technological, enforcement and other market developments.”
“It appears the uncapped market may still provide a service of value to some consumers”
He continues: “The government notes and agrees with the CMA recommendation that there should not be a ban on the uncapped secondary ticket market. Whilst both the way tickets are sold and used are changing and there is a growing authorised capped ticket resale market to help those who can no longer use their purchased ticket, it appears the uncapped market may still provide a service of value to some consumers.”
Hollinrake argues that is “too soon to conclude that the only way forward is further legislation focused on this market”.
“As you are aware, there are a number of improvements to other aspects of consumer law which we have now published in our response to the 2021 consultation,” he adds. “These will be our priority in the immediate future, rather than changes to the secondary ticketing regime specifically.”
“The government has effectively given bad actors a free pass to continue acquiring tickets in bulk to popular events and to engage in speculative and fraudulent selling”
Sharon Hodgson MP, chair of the APPG on ticket abuse, says the group is “struggling to understand” why the government has turned down the CMA’s recommendations.
“In August 2021, the CMA made it clear to the government that a handful of additional safeguards could help reduce the scale of unlawful online ticket touting, and better protect consumers,” says Hodgson. “Nineteen months on, and all their recommendations have been rejected. We are still struggling to understand why, and on what basis.
“Rather than improving the capacity of enforcement agencies to clamp down on malpractice, the government has effectively given bad actors a free pass to continue acquiring tickets in bulk to popular events and to engage in speculative and fraudulent selling. These individuals can make extraordinary profits at the expense of ordinary fans who are left ripped off and out of pocket.
“The UK is rightly proud of its live event industry, but an uncontrolled black market risks harming the consumer experience and wreaking untold damage on the sector overall.”
“The experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely”
Adam Webb, campaign manager of UK-based campaign against industrial-scale online ticket touting FanFair Alliance, shares similar sentiments.
“In August 2021, the Competition & Markets Authority published a series of common sense recommendations to the government that aimed to further protect consumers from being ripped off by unscrupulous ticket touts and parasitical ticket resale sites,” he says. “These included new measures to clamp down on the unlawful bulk-buying of tickets and large-scale speculative fraud, where rogue traders list tickets for sale that they do not possess. Research by FanFair Alliance has shown these problems remain rampant on certain secondary ticketing platforms.
“Nineteen months down the line, and, despite overwhelming evidence of continuing bad practice, the government has today comprehensively rejected the CMA’s advice – without, we believe, consulting with experts, campaigners or the live music industry.
“The experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely. Although much progress has been made in recent years to tame the UK’s black market for tickets, FanFair Alliance shares the views of the CMA that further action is still required to tackle these evident and ongoing problems with online secondary ticketing.”
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Most fest tickets on Viagogo sold by three traders
Just three people are responsible for over two thirds of UK festival and outdoor event tickets listed by resale platform Viagogo, according to a new report.
An investigation by ITV News, based on research carried out by anti-touting campaign group FanFair Alliance, found that fewer than 10% of tickets on the secondary ticketing site were being sold by ordinary consumers.
Analysis of more than 11,000 tickets from 174 events over a three-month period revealed that over two-thirds were being sold by just three “traders” for a combined total of £1.7 million – almost £1m above face value.
The report found evidence of so-called “speculative” tickets – which sellers do not yet possess – being illegally offered for sale.
The investigation contacted 10 festivals being listed by the three traders, with two saying the sellers had bought nowhere near the number of tickets being advertised, and the rest saying they had no record of them buying any tickets at all. One of the traders’ listings have since been removed from Viagogo’s website.
“We treat concerns about tickets with the utmost priority”
“We treat concerns about tickets with the utmost priority,” says a spokesperson for Viagogo. “In this instance, we acted swiftly to remove the relevant listings and have returned several to the site that have clearly demonstrated that they are legitimate and valid.
“We continue to review the remaining listings and these remain off site.”
The decision followed an investigation by Italy’s financial crime enforcement agency the Guardia di Finanza, which found the platform had listed tickets for 131 events at prices up to six or seven times above their face-value. Viagogo responded that since it had already been held a ‘passive’ intermediary platform by the Council of State in a previous final judgment, it was confident the fines would be annulled on appeal.
Earlier, in May, Australia’s full federal court dismissed Viagogo’s appeal against a ruling that it had made misleading claims on its website relating to the reselling of concert and sports tickets.
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International Ticketing Report 2021: Secondary ticketing
The International Ticketing Report is a one-off annual health check on the global ticketing business, with emphasis on the sector’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The past two years have been turbulent for the business, but with consumer demand for live events now at an all-time peak, the challenges of fulfilling the most packed event schedule in history will test ticketers to the hilt.
Staffing, vouchers schemes and refunds, demand, consumer behaviour, communication, new products & services, secondary ticketing, pandemic lessons and recovery are among the challengers addressed by industry-leading experts in this extended report.
The report, originally published in IQ105, is in lieu of the International Ticketing Yearbook – a standalone global guide to the live entertainment market that will return in 2022.
IQ will publish sections of the International Ticketing Report over the coming weeks but subscribers can read the entire feature in issue 105 of IQ Magazine now.
To read the previous instalment of the report on new products and services, click here.
The controversial business of secondary ticketing was never far from the headlines, pre-Covid, and indeed on the eve of the pandemic being declared, leading European operation Viagogo acquired eBay’s ticketing division, StubHub, for an eye-watering $4.05billion (€3.5bn) in cash.
The timing of that transaction, in February 2020, led to financial publication Forbes branding it the “worst deal ever” as sports and live entertainment were among the first sectors to close down, effectively shutting down the secondary market, too.
Since then, Viagogo sold its StubHub assets outside of North America, primarily to meet anti-competition regulations, but with little to no revenues over the past 18 months, the company will be determined to make the most of 2022’s packed events schedule to start clawing back some of that substantial investment.
According to Adam Webb, campaign manager at FanFair Alliance, an anti-touting campaign group, “The fear now is that the secondary players will be as desperate to get as much inventory as they can, and the other side of that is that some promoters will be desperate to sell tickets any which way, as well.”
“There’s still a lot of work to do on the industry’s behalf educating their consumers about capped resale services”
With thousands of tours, festivals, and other events going on sale in the weeks and months ahead, Webb is all too aware that many people may need to use secondary services to divest of tickets for rescheduled shows they can no longer attend for any number of reasons.
Webb contends that while those ticket exchange platforms with capped resale rules also suffered during the pandemic, they also seem to have weathered the storm.
“Just before the likes of Reading and Wireless festivals, there were loads of tickets available on places like Twickets, so there was real need – possibly driven by Covid – for a lot of people to genuinely resell their tickets,” says Webb.
“Because of dates being rescheduled or people who have health concerns, I think having that option through is probably more vital than ever, and there will be a need for primary agents to up their game a little bit to make sure fans are aware of those ticket exchange services, what they are and how to use them.”
He adds, “Going into 2022, with the calendar busier than probably ever before, lots of consumers are still unaware of the difference between an uncapped seller like StubHub or Viagogo and the primary ticket services.
“So I think there’s still a lot of work to do on the industry’s behalf educating their consumers about capped resale services and how to use them. All of the primary ticket companies have a resale service or are affiliated with one but those services need to be marketed a bit better.”
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The likes of Viagogo are actually weak and damaged
How must the smart people at Bessemer Venture Partners and Madrone Capital Partners, the two VC funds that bankrolled Viagogo’s US$4.05bn acquisition of StubHub, be feeling right now?
For Madrone, in particular, it’s been a tough couple of years. As well as losing $150m in the crash and burn of Theranos, they were also the lead investor in Quibi, backing the ill-fated short-form video service to the tune of $200m during the upwards part of its firework-like trajectory.
And then they met Eric Baker.
Much has been written about how the Viagogo/StubHub merger, completed one month before the world shut down, was, in the words of Forbes magazine, “The Worst Deal Ever”.
I’ve written about it myself, on this website – highlighting how the deal appeared wildly overpriced, even before we all became self-professed experts in vaccines and lateral flow testing, and how a combination of regulation and innovation were, in the longer-term, likely to fundamentally disrupt a secondary ticketing “business model” wholly dependent on search advertising and large-scale touts.
Added to that was the spectre of an investigation by the UK’s business regulator, the Competition & Markets Authority, who duly put the merger on hold, concluded that the acquisition created a “significant lessening of competition” in the UK, and subsequently ordered Viagogo to sell-off StubHub’s international operations before integration can complete.
There’s evidence to suggest much of the inventory on Viagogo doesn’t actually exist
Would-be suitors for the international (ie loss-making) parts of StubHub, as well as being approved by the CMA, will be required to run the platform as an uncapped resale service and in direct competition with Viagogo. In the current environment, that sounds a fairly unalluring prospect. Although, as Madrone has repeatedly highlighted, fools and other people’s money can be easily parted.
Meanwhile, and perhaps more alarming for those beleaguered investors, the credit rating of Viagogo’s parent company PUG LLC started to nosedive. They took on an additional $330m in loans, and then, earlier this year, informed regulators in Australia – who’d hauled them over the coals for making false or misleading representations when reselling tickets – that they couldn’t pay a AUD$7m fine due to the catastrophic impacts of the pandemic.
Oh, and Eric Baker reportedly embarked on a property spree in Beverly Hills, completing the purchase of his third mansion in September 2020 for $39m. Presumably, the pandemic not being quite so financially catastrophic for him personally.
And now, as detailed in a Guardian yesterday, there’s evidence to suggest much of the inventory on Viagogo doesn’t actually exist, and that speculative selling – some of it by businesses likely connected to Viagogo itself – is rife.
This could now be the opportunity to step up, to standardise the changes outlined in the FanFair guide
I certainly hope Bessemer and Madrone have digested the implications of Rob Davies’ latest investigation into the bizarre and artificial constructs of this market – and that they’ve studied the February 2021 Phase 2 Final Report from the CMA, which concluded that the value of tickets resold through the UK’s online ticketing platforms in 2019 was around £350m. Somewhat less than the £1.5-2.5bn estimated by Viagogo and StubHub.
As we all wait optimistically for gigs and festivals to return, and for normal life to resume, I hope that promoters, agents, artist managers, venues and primary ticket companies are also taking note, and recognising that, rather than all-powerful platforms, the likes of Viagogo are actually weak and damaged enterprises – and that the UK industry has been greatly empowered over recent years to prevent the exploitation of customers in the secondary market and offer them a better and fairer alternative when it comes to resale.
The wider industry can, of course, choose to do nothing. Shrug shoulders. Say how terrible ticket touting is while failing to enact the fairly simple measures that can help prevent it.
Alternatively, this could now be the opportunity to step up, to standardise the changes outlined in the guide FanFair published back in September 2019, and ensure there’s a wider push to properly communicate how resale works, and that those services are the best they can be.
Viagogo disputes the claims made in the Guardian article. A spokesperson says: “Viagogo rejects the unsubstantiated allegations in the Guardian article referenced in this piece. No evidence was outlined in the article nor was any provided to the company despite repeated requests.
“There is a mechanism in place to raise issues formally either with Viagogo or the regulator. The Guardian chose instead to write a misinformed article.
“Viagogo has strict measures in place to ensure the accuracy and compliance of listings and to prevent fraudulent selling, which are audited annually by a third party.
“In all transactions there is an onus on the seller to agree to certain terms and conditions, which includes the right to sell a ticket.
“Where we are provided with proof from a relevant authority of an abuse of these rules we will investigate and, if confirmed, action will be taken.”
Adam Webb is campaign manager for FanFair Alliance.
Viagogo offers to sell parts of StubHub in merger bid
Viagogo is offering to sell StubHub’s resale business outside of North America in a bid to address concerns expressed by the UK’s competition watchdog which has provisionally halted the $4 billion (£3bn) merger.
UK watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), recently found that the acquisition of StubHub by Viagogo will reduce competition in an “already very concentrated market”, throwing into doubt the fate of the already completed deal in the UK.
Now, Viagogo is proposing the sale of StubHub’s holding company, which operates all of its international primary and secondary businesses, including its UK operations, in a bid to address the CMA’s concerns – though the deal would see Viagogo retain StubHub’s much larger US and Canadian ticket resale business.
“There are some glaring concerns with their reported proposal, which appears to suggest a three-year lease not an outright sale”
Under the sale, the buyer of StubHub’s operations would receive customer and transaction data in the UK and beyond as well as the Spain-based Ticketbis, which was sold to StubHub in 2016 for a reported €165m.
The proposal also states that the buyer would be allowed to use the StubHub UK brand for three years, followed by a year-long “blackout” where neither the buyer nor Viagogo could use the StubHub brand in Britain.
Adam Webb, campaign manager for anti-ticket touting group FanFair Alliance, told IQ: “Viagogo is a discredited business that’s been at the heart of a major ticket mis-selling scandal, ripping off UK audiences to the tune of millions. The operators of this platform cannot be trusted. Even on initial glance, there are some glaring concerns with their reported proposal, which appears to suggest a three-year lease of StubHub UK’s business – not an outright sale. We have already raised these concerns with the CMA.”
While a Viagogo spokesperson says: “We look forward to working with the CMA to deliver a comprehensive solution which addresses their concerns and we believe this proposal would achieve that.”
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Lost no more: Campaigners take centre stage as IQ Focus returns
After taking a week off last week, IQ’s popular virtual panel series, IQ Focus, returns this Thursday, inviting six new panellists to shine a light on worthy causes which have taken a back seat during the Covid-19 crisis.
Before Covid-19, a wide range of advocacy work was centred around live music, from campaigns to improve gender diversity in line-ups and accessibility for disabled customers to environmental projects and drives around recruitment, inclusion and mental health.
But what have experts and practitioners in these areas been doing since live music shut down? And when music events do return, against an uncertain economic backdrop is there a risk that their important work will be diminished?
The Lost Causes: Campaigners & Advocacy counts the broader cost of the business interruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic
The first in a new series of ‘Lost Causes’ discussions invites Francine Gorman, outreach coordinator at Keychange; Jacob Sylvester Bilabel of Green Music Initiative; Natalie Wade, founder of Small Green Shoots; Attitude is Everything’s head of volunteering and skills development, Paul Hawkins; Musica Therapy’s Sital Panesar; and chair Adam Webb (FanFair Alliance) to counts the broader cost of the business interruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
As with previous sessions, The Lost Causes: Campaigners & Advocacy will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube. To set a reminder for Thursday 13 August’s session, head to IQ’s Facebook or YouTube pages now.
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CMA refers Viagogo/Stubhub merger for further investigation
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has referred the merger of secondary ticketing giants Viagogo and StubHub for an in-depth investigation, warning that the deal could result in “a substantial lessening of competition”.
The watchdog began its investigation into Viagogo’s US$4 billion all-cash acquisition of StubHub in December, following pressure from anti-ticket touting groups.
Earlier this month, the CMA stated that the deal, which would see both companies brought back under the control of founder Eric Baker, “could lead to customers losing out through higher prices, less innovation and a lack of real choice.”
The organisation is now advising that the merger be investigated further, after giving Viagogo five days to respond to its initial concerns.
Adam Webb, campaign manager of anti-touting group FanFair Alliance “welcomes” the CMA’s decision.
“We remain committed to our belief that the combination of the two companies is a good move for customers worldwide”
“Over recent years, there have been major steps forward in the UK to eradicate the bad practices of sites like Viagogo and StubHub and those of the large-scale ticket touts who dominate their supply chain,” says Webb.
“Even in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, the thought of such a business monopolising “for profit” secondary ticketing remains highly problematic.
“Viagogo’s predatory marketing practices and business model continue to endanger audiences, and its $4.05bn acquisition of StubHub raises acute competition concerns, particularly in the UK.”
A Viagogo spokesperson says that the company “will continue to work diligently with the CMA” during the second phase of their review.
“We remain committed to our belief that the combination of the two companies is a good move for customers worldwide.”
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CMA: Viagogo/StubHub merger to drive up prices
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has stated that the merger of secondary ticketing giants Viagogo and Stubub could result in “higher prices and fewer options” for fans.
The watchdog began its investigation into Viagogo’s US$4 billion all-cash acquisition of StubHub in December, following pressure from anti-ticket touting groups. The deal would see both companies brought back under the control of founder Eric Baker.
Upon investigation, the CMA has found that the merger would drive up prices for fans wishing to resell or buy tickets on the secondary market, given the companies are “close competitors in an already very concentrated market with limited alternatives”. (Together, the ticketers hold 80% of the secondary market in the UK.)
“Viagogo is already the largest secondary ticketing company in the UK by some considerable margin and has purchased an established rival, with no other significant competitors in the market,” comments CME executive director, Andrea Gomes da Silva.
“We are therefore concerned that this transaction could lead to customers losing out through higher prices, less innovation and a lack of real choice.”
“[Viagogo] should not be allowed to monopolise for-profit ‘secondary ticketing'”
The CMA also states that the current impact the coronavirus pandemic is exerting on the live events business is unlikely to adversely affect Viagogo and StubHub’s position in the market in the long term, in comparison to other competitors.
Viagogo has five days to address the CMA’s concerns by offering a solution that would maintain effective competition in the UK market. The deal will be referred for an in-depth phase two investigation, if the secondary ticketer fails to do so.
Adam Webb, campaign manager of anti-touting group FanFair Alliance, says the organisation “welcomes” the announcement.
“Viagogo remains a highly controversial business,” says Webb. “The company has widely flouted consumer protection law in the UK, and remains under investigation in numerous other countries. Even today, amidst this terrible crisis that has decimated live music, Viagogo’s suppliers are attempting to sell tickets to cancelled events.
“Such a company, that has created thousands of consumer victims, should not be allowed to monopolise for-profit ‘secondary ticketing’. That outcome would raise significant competition concerns in the UK and threaten to reverse hard-won reforms to prevent abuses in this market.”
“As we have throughout this process, we will continue to work diligently with the CMA during their review of the transaction,” says a Viagogo spokesperon. “We remain committed to our belief that the combination of the two companies is a good move for customers worldwide.”
StubHub, whose president Sukhinder Singh Cassidy announced she was stepping down last month, is currently facing lawsuits in the US and Canada on account of its Covid-19 refund policy.
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Stubagogo: One of the worst-timed acquisitions in history?
“As we sit here today, [coronavirus] has not [affected ticket sales], because most of the live events where we’ve seen cancellations have really been in China, and a few in Taiwan and Singapore. Most important for everyone, we hope that they get it under control, and solve the health crisis – but right now it’s been isolated to Asia specifically, and mostly China.”
(Eric Baker, interview with Squawk Alley, CNBC, 21 February 2020)
Viagogo started last month in typically bullish mood.
In the slipstream of their $4.05bn acquisition of StubHub in mid-February, on March 7th the UK’s Daily Telegraph ran a news story suggesting Covid-19 was proving a boon for the secondary ticketing market. While the rest of the live events sector faced impending crisis, listings on Viagogo had apparently risen 45% in the previous week.
According to the report, this was due to “nervous concertgoers and sports fans frantically trying to resell tickets for major events amid the panic around the spread of coronavirus.”
As someone with an interest in this area, I quickly checked viagogo.co.uk.
Strange.
There was no noticeable surge. As per usual, 80–90% of ticket listings were accompanied by star-shaped icons – denoting that the seller is a ‘trader’ rather than a consumer. I contacted the journalist, asking for the evidence to substantiate these claims. (They are yet to return my emails.)
In the month since, events have moved fast.
Despite closing the StubHub acquisition on 13 February – in his CNBC interview, Baker claimed to have paid $2bn in cash and a further $2bn in debt financing – further integration between the two platforms (dubbed ‘Stubagogo’) is being prevented because of an initial enforcement order from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, with the possibility of additional investigation.
Viagogo’s ownership of StubHub doesn’t bring much to the party, aside from a highly toxic reputation
Effectively, this has left StubHub in a state of limbo.
Speaking to Billboard, a StubHub spokesperson stated they are “currently operating as an independent company, no longer under the support of eBay but not yet operated by Viagogo.” Albeit if you search eBay for event tickets, the site still defaults to StubHub and describes StubHub as “an eBay company”.
Again, all quite strange.
And then the full impacts of live music shutdown started to unfold.
On March 25th, StubHub announced it was furloughing two thirds of its workforce, swiftly followed by a change in company policy on refunds. Buyers of tickets to cancelled events in North America would now be offered vouchers in lieu of cash.
Predictably, this has already attracted a $5m class-action lawsuit, on the basis that StubHub brought the crisis on itself as a result of their publicly stated policy of paying out their largest suppliers (such as ‘super tout’ Julien Lavallee) in advance of events.
It sounds like rough times ahead.
But if the future looks bleak for StubHub, it’s arguably bleaker for Viagogo.
Moody’s has downgraded Viagogo’s corporate outlook from “stable” to “negative”
Even before Covid-19, the acquisition of StubHub looked wildly overpriced. $4.05bn is reportedly 25 x StubHub’s EBITDA – an astonishing amount for a relatively mature business operating predominantly in the highly congested US market and facing substantial commercial and regulatory challenges.
Viagogo, meanwhile, is a relative minnow in the US. Its ownership of StubHub doesn’t really bring much to the party, aside from a highly toxic reputation. The acquisition has essentially resulted in a change of ownership – no more, no less – whereas a merger between, say, StubHub and Vivid Seats, would have been genuinely transformative and created a much larger market-dominant platform.
Added to this, outside the US, Viagogo’s long-term viability looks far less secure than it did 2–3 years ago. In the UK, the recent sentencing of Peter Hunter and David Smith, who sold substantial volumes of tickets through Viagogo, has imperilled the business model of large-scale resellers on whom the secondary platforms rely. With more trials to come, Viagogo’s supply chain looks to be under threat.
Meanwhile, the company still faces legal actions in several other territories, all of which are likely to probe and cross-examine Viagogo’s less-than-transparent business practices.
An insight into these can be found on the Federal Trade Commission website, in an illuminating exchange of emails between the CMA, Viagogo’s lawyers at CMS, and the FTC – all of which indicate an almost pathological reluctance by Viagogo to disclose information about key staff, key shareholders, its turnover or its byzantine corporate structures including companies such as Basset Capital LLC, Grover Street Holdings, FJ Labs LLC, Andro Capital Management, IFOT Services Ltd and VGL Services.
This could well be one the most poorly timed acquisitions in recent corporate history
Earlier this year, the Moody’s rating agency downgraded the corporate family rating of Pugnacious Endeavors (Viagogo’s parent company) to B2, before changing the company’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” – citing both a “lack of public financial disclosure” and “the absence of board independence” for its changed credit profile.
While we wait for the CMA to make further announcements on the merger, the weeks and months ahead will likely be of some consequence.
Viagogo has already put staff at its customer service centre on 30 days’ “protective notice”. Their purchase of Google advertising appears to have stopped dead.
Listings are dormant, not surging.
But above that is the fact that Eric Baker and his investors appear to have paid out $4.05bn for a crippled business that lies, according to some reports, on the verge of bankruptcy.
In the context of the unprecedented crisis being played out in all our lives, this could well be one the most poorly timed acquisitions in recent corporate history.
Adam Webb is campaign manager for FanFair Alliance.
StubHub ordered not to advertise tickets as “genuine”
UK advertising regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has ruled that secondary ticketing platform StubHub should not advertise tickets as “guaranteed genuine”, following a complaint from anti-tout platform FanFair Alliance.
The ASA ruled that StubHub cannot claim tickets are guaranteed genuine where there is a risk that buyers might not be able to gain entry into an event.
FanFair Alliance issued the complaint about a specific advert claiming it sells “guaranteed genuine tickets”. The complaint states that, as a third-party reseller, StubHub is unable to guarantee that tickets sold on its platform are genuine, rendering the claim misleading.
In response, StubHub claimed that “genuine” refers to tickets not being fake or fraudulent, and does not imply that they are definitely valid for entry.
StubHub states its seller fraud rate is under 0.1% and all orders are backed by its ‘FanProtect Guarantee’, allowing fans to obtain a refund if they do not receive tickets on time or are unable to gain entry to the venue.
The ASA’s ruling considers that consumers would understand “guaranteed genuine tickets” to indicate the definite timely arrival of valid tickets guaranteeing entry to the relevant event.
“We understood that the claim was intended by StubHub to refer to a guarantee that buyers would receive valid tickets for the event or a comparable replacement ticket or refund,” reads an ASA statement. “However, this information had not been presented in the ad.”
StubHub has now removed the advert in question. A spokesperson adds: “Every marketplace order is protected by the FanProtect Guarantee, meaning that in those rare instances something goes wrong with a transaction, fans will receive a comparable or better replacement ticket or their money back.”
“Given the impact of the coronavirus on the live events industry, we have made the difficult but responsible decision to furlough a portion of our employee base”
StubHub is among companies to have temporarily laid off staff due to the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic. According to Celebrity Access, the ticketing platform has furloughed around two thirds of its work force.
“Given the impact of the coronavirus on the live events industry, we have made the difficult but responsible decision to furlough a portion of our employee base,” reads a StubHub statement.
“We continue to support our customers and partners and look forward to a time when we are able to return to the joy of live events and the special, human connections that come with them.”
The secondary ticketing platform is offering fans a StubHub coupon “worth 120% of your original order” for tickets to event cancelled due coronavirus. The coupon can be applied to one or more StubHub orders in within the next year. Those who have sold tickets to cancelled events will have their transaction reversed by StubHub.
If events are not cancelled, but fans no longer wish to attend due to concerns over Covid-19, the site will not offer refunds. Fans are encouraged to resell tickets on the StubHub platform.
Viagogo, the secondary ticketing site that acquired StubHub in a $4.05 billion all-cash deal last year, has announced that all its customers will receive a “full refund” for any cancelled events.
Earlier this month, Viagogo reported a 45% increase in fans listing tickets on its UK site.
“The live events sector has undoubtedly been impacted in the UK. We have seen an overall increase of 45% in fans listing their tickets in the UK this week, but that could be for a variety of factors,” said a Viagogo spokesperson.
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