Secondhand sites selling U2 tickets for eye-watering €1,700

By Joe Leogue

The Government’s failure to curb ticket-touting was criticised again as some secondhand websites advertise tickets for the upcoming U2 concerts in Dublin for more than €1,700 each.

Tickets for the concerts in the Three Arena later this year were snapped up in minutes, only for some to emerge for sale on second-hand sites for multiple times their face value.

The Irish Examiner reports that it found tickets on sale on Viagogo for one of the U2 shows for €1,758 each.

Viagogo offers ticket reselling services in dozens of countries, and opened its international operations centre in Limerick in 2014. The next year it announced its intention to double its workforce in Ireland over three years, from 100 to more than 200 employees.

Viagogo directed all queries to a Q&A section on its website. “We have no further comment beyond these answers,” its press office said.

One of the country’s largest concert promoters, Peter Aiken, has criticised the Government’s support for a Viagogo.

Mr Aiken said he would welcome legislation that tackles ticket touting, the sale of fake tickets, and ticket reselling at inflated prices. However, he questioned why such moves are being made by politicians when a government minister cut the ribbon on Viagogo’s Limerick office, which received support from IDA Ireland.

Fine Gael TD Noel Rock has proposed legislation that would ban selling tickets at above face value, and said the controversy over the price of U2 tickets is evidence such laws are needed.

Mr Rock said: “This is now happening on a weekly basis with concerts big and small, as well as larger sporting events: people know they can make a quick few quid by snapping up tickets via advance sales, and make at least double their money back.

“This situation cannot continue: the ticketing industry cannot be relied upon to regulate itself. Time and time again, they promise that things will change. Time and time again, they fail to change things. It’s time for the Government to step in with legislation.”

However, Mr Aiken, who was in Cork yesterday to announce the latest acts to play Live at the Marquee, questioned why the Government gave Viagogo its support. The then-enterprise minister Richard Bruton officially opened Viagogo’s Limerick base in 2015.

“Viagogo are in Limerick. One of the ministers from Fine Gael went up and cut the ribbon for them. Does that minister want to close it down and say there’s a loss of 100 jobs?” Mr Aiken said.

Mr Aiken said he would support legislation to protect concertgoers.

“It would be great, but ring the minister who opened Viagogo and ask him why he did that,” he said. “When you go to buy U2 tickets today, and google ‘U2 tickets Dublin’ the first site that pops up is Viagogo. They pay for that, thousands of pounds for that, and that’s why people buy tickets from them.”

The promoter said that touting is not as big an issue in Ireland as it is in other markets.

“You’ll get a few people speculating but it’s not some big organised syndicate doing it,” he said. “It is in markets like London and New York, big markets where people will pay anything for tickets. But how many ticket touts do you have in Cork? None.”

Mr Aiken also said greater protections are needed for concertgoers who are sold fake tickets to events.

“It’s fraud. If you went to a cash machine and someone hit you over the head and took €50, the police would do something about it,” he said. “But when you’re standing at the box office every night, including down at the Marquee, people turn up with bits of paper for tickets that don’t exist and they’ve paid €500 for tickets. That happens at every gig.”

Responding to Mr Aiken, Mr Rock said there is “nothing untoward” about the support Viagogo had received.

“The reality is that Viagogo was a perfectly legal trading entity and remains so,” Mr Rock said, adding that the website would be expected to comply with his proposed legislation if it is approved by the Dáil.

Mr Rock said that should Viagogo find its operations are no longer viable under such laws, it would be “one of those facts of life”.