‘Your Festival Ticket Is Yours To Sell’ Says Viagogo

The CEO of ticket on-selling website viagogo believes that fans have the right to sell their festival and concert tickets if they wish as the company officially arrives in Australia.

After soft-launching earlier this year, the site's announced its official entry into the local market, which is one of almost 50 countries that the site is operational in. Founder and CEO Eric Baker told theMusic.com.au that the site is designed to eliminate ticket fraud from market but said he felt ticket purchasers had a right to on-sell their tickets if they so wished.

“Once a fan buys a ticket, we believe that it's theirs to do what they want with it,” he said, adding, “…If I buy a motor car, I have the right to sell it.”

Scalping and ticket fraud has been a hot topic recently, with Bruce Springsteen promoters Frontier threatening to cancel on-sold tickets and festival Splendour In The Grass announcing its own in-house platform to re-sell unwanted tickets, which are personalised to the buyer. Melbourne's Palais Theatre also launched its own platform last month.

“We very much think that those solutions have been unpopular with fans and ineffective,” Baker said. “And that's a pretty bad combination, when something's unpopular and ineffective it probably won't work.”

Under viagogo's platform – which caters for music, sport and the arts – each ticket seller is registered, and payment is not received until after the event takes place. Baker said that if something goes awry with the transaction, the company will acquire comparable tickets and charge the seller's credit card. The replacement tickets are often sourced through viagogo itself, particularly in the case of sold-out events.

“Unlike a Gumtree of an Ebay we're actually taking care of the transactions,” he said. “…sellers don't get paid until after the event.”

He said that research into the Australian market found there to be “a lot of fraud” but that it was a “great market for passion” in terms of ticket purchases.

While not revealing the numbers of users currently using the site, Baker said the territory was “one of the best markets we've seen pre-launch”.

The site is currently offering tickets to Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Soundwave and Stereosonic.