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The plans 'should help drive down costs for fans too', it claims
A popular ticket resale platform has said it intends to ‘double-down’ on its expansion into the UK despite a potential crackdown on how tickets to big concerts and matches are bought online in the country right now.
Bosses at Viagogo, which operates under the StubHub brand in the US, have said the UK is a ‘huge focus’ for the company as the number of leading concerts from big name musicians and major sporting events held nationwide continues to rise. It already works alongside the likes of Manchester City FC and F1 on selling tickets.
The company, which was founded in London in 2006, is expanding its operations in the UK to an ‘airline-style’ ticketing model which will see it compete alongside primary ticketing sellers, like the leading Ticketmaster, and will also allow tickets to be sold through multiple vendors rather than exclusively in just one place.
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The ‘open distribution’ model has already been rolled out for a number of sporting events across the US, with Viagogo now selling tickets for nine of America’s 32 Major League Baseball teams. Raj Beri, chief business officer of StubHub North America and Viagogo, has described the model as a “major growth driver” for the UK and Europe.
He said: “We are looking to double-down and really expand in the UK, and that’s going to be a huge focus for us, especially on the open distribution side. We believe resale is very important. It plays a huge role in allowing fans to get tickets when they want, have access when they want.
“It allows rights holders to sell inventory that would not get sold otherwise. But we also believe that open distribution is the future of ticketing, and that’s really going to be the huge growth driver in markets like the UK.”
The move also comes as secondary ticket sites face a crackdown in Britain, with a proposed new law that will make it illegal for tickets to be resold above face value, plus unavoidable fees. The law is expected to be confirmed in the upcoming King’s Speech and is designed to end large-scale touting that has caused misery for millions of fans.
At the time of the proposals for the new law being publicly outlined, Ticketmaster said it had first implemented a cap on resale prices back in 2018. The platform said it ‘fully supports’ the proposals from the Government and said it would be ‘another major step forward for fans’.
Viagogo said its “open distribution” plans are not being made in direct response to the new law in the UK and elsewhere globally, with New York and some states in the US also proposing resale price caps. Mr Beri told PA: “We didn’t wait around for the legislation to tell us to go forward there. This has, for the last 18 months, been part of our strategy.”
He said it has been gaining traction in America, allowing sports teams, venues and artists to list tickets through StubHub instead of relying on one seller. He explained: “We’re starting to see that take hold in the UK now too, where more and more teams, large music festivals, other players, are very interested in saying, ‘you know what, we don’t want to just work with Ticketmaster, we don’t believe that 100% of our inventory needs to be held captive by one player’, so they’re pushing back.”
The model works similarly to those used within the travel industry, with airlines selling tickets on their own sites, but also through global distribution networks such as Expedia and Kayak. Viagogo believes this change will help events reach bigger audiences and market unsold tickets, while also costing them less and giving them more control over pricing.
“They keep 100% of the ticket revenue, and we just keep the buyer fee, and that’s actually what’s resonating in the market here in the UK right now,” Mr Beri said. He added it should help drive down costs for fans too, with the event organisers, venues and acts setting the pricing. “We do believe this will lead to more competitive pricing and therefore be better for fans overall,” said Mr Beri.
In the UK, Viagogo is already working directly with football teams, such as Manchester City, and F1 teams. The group’s push into open distribution comes after StubHub’s recent stock market debut in the US, which has seen it make a rocky start to life on the market.
Shares are down more than 50% already since listing in September, with some market experts citing regulatory pressures in a number of markets. But Mr Beri insisted the regulation changes are not a huge blow to the firm. He said: “While I understand that the price caps are a hot issue, we’re a global company, we sell tickets in 200 countries, there’s no one market that will really impact our business in a way that will be a shock to our system overall.”
English (US) ·