Viagogo empty-chaired at UK select committee hearing no-show

Viagogo may be just one of four prominent secondary-ticketing services in the UK, but it’s become the focal point for anger around how its market works. Recent reports about the company reselling tickets for an Ed Sheeran teenage-cancer benefit gig assigned it public-enemy status, but yesterday the company’s no-show at a parliamentary select-committee hearing in the UK angered politicians too.

The company had been asked to attend the hearing by MPs on the department for culture, media and sport committee, which is investigating the secondary market. On the eve of the hearing, Viagogo wrote to the MPs explaining it wouldn’t be attending, with the Guardian reporting that one of its excuses was “that the company does not sell tickets, and only allows others to do so” – secondary ticketing’s equivalent of the familiar ‘platform not a publisher’ argument in the world of UGC.

Cue outraged harrumphing of the kind that British politicians specialise in when they feel that parliament is being disrespected, although it has to be said that it is almost unheard of for companies to snub a select-committee summons. Viagogo was ‘empty-chaired’ at the hearing, with a chair left prominently unfilled to highlight its absence, and MPs cutting loose in their criticism of the company, with one accusing it of “naked mis-selling and fraud” and another saying it “makes [famous British tout] Stan Flashman look like Mother Teresa”.

More seriously, the hearing also dragged Google in to yet another dispute with the music industry. That concerned Viagogo paying for ads on the search engine to ensure its tickets – even when they don’t exist yet – appear at the top of its listings. “I can pay 50p per click, they can pay £10,” said promoter Stuart Galbraith of the headache this causes for primary ticket listings competing for the same ad space.

The prospect of Google taking action against Viagogo (over “fraudulent or misrepresentative ads” rather than just over secondary ticketing itself) combined with the very real likelihood of a legislative crackdown on the secondary sector more generally is a threat to Viagogo. The company did itself few favours by not turning up to defend its position.

Source: The Guardian – http://tinyurl.com/mvhj7sj