The men’s football tournament will take place in June and July 2026 in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The majority of the games will be played in the USA, where there are no federal laws limiting the price of reselling tickets.��

Tickets to the World Cup, which began being released in limited presale phases last month, can only be resold through FIFA’s official website and the body itself is set to profit massively off the scalping of tickets by charging both the seller a 15% fee and the buyer another 15% fee, effectively making $30 off every $100 of tickets sold.��

“FIFA is clipping the ticket both ways��–��this will drive up prices for real fans and shows they have no interest in equity or access,” says David Rowe, emeritus professor of cultural research at the Western Sydney University.��

“It’s not good news for your everyday sports fan, but of course, it’s very good news for FIFA’s coffers.”

USA’s ‘Wild West’ of ticketing

While Mexico does have laws prohibiting the reselling of tickets at marked up prices, the USA, where the majority of games including the quarter finals, semi-finals and final are being played, does not.

At previous World Cups, FIFA limited the reselling of tickets to face value and took a smaller percentage in resale fees.��

Only a limited number of presale tickets to the tournament have gone on sale so far and they are already reselling at sky-high prices.��

����Vlog checked FIFA’s official reselling website on Tuesday and found Category 1 tickets (the best seats) to the Final game in New Jersey, which reportedly originally sold for $10,200AUD in presale, were being resold for between $36,800 to $87,700.

From that single top-tier ticket alone, FIFA would make $26,300.��

“Tickets to the World Cup are expensive already, but when you add on the margins from resales that will be resold again and again, not by fans, but by people who want to make money, it is out of control. It has become the wild west –⁠ who knows how bad it is going to get?” Rowe says.��

FIFA responds

FIFA told the New York Times that their reselling fees were in line with industry trends.��

“The fact that secondary market activity is legal in certain markets renders it necessary to have a ticketing model that reflects our responsibility to provide secure access to fans, while at the same time ensuring as much value as possible is retained as the more income is generated via ticket sales, the more FIFA funds are invested back into football,” it said.��

Meg Elkins, senior lecturer in economics, finance and marketing at RMIT University says she doesn’t put too much stock in the argument.��

“They are basically saying ‘if someone is going to scalp, it may as well be us’. It is an argument we hear a lot in the music industry. But that doesn’t justify the mark-ups,” she says.��

“With the base price of tickets already double what Qatar (2022 World Cup) was and football being the biggest sport in the world, we could see tickets go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Elkins says.��

Australians will miss out

Even before Australia qualified for the World Cup in June 2025, Sydney-based fan Attila was already planning ahead for the tournament.��

“Football is the only sport I watched as a kid, that’s how we were brought up in an ethnic family. Following the Socceroos wasn’t a lot of joy in the 1980s and ’90s, but that’s turned around a fair bit now.”.��

He says with options for free accommodation in the USA with people he knows, this is his best shot at seeing the men’s team play on the world stage.��

“I’m prepared to drop a couple of grand for tickets for my wife and I, but there is a limit to what we can do,” he says.

He describes FIFA’s uncapped reselling of tickets as “outrageous”.��

“They all know the value of this tournament and are going to milk it for all that it’s worth.”��

Patrick Clancy, chair of the Football Supporters Association Australia which advocates for fans of the game, says Australians may miss out on the opportunity due to costs.��

“The cost will be a prohibitive factor for a lot of Australians. The cost of the tickets, the cost of travelling over there, there is the cost of visas now. Not to mention worrying about visas and what’s on your social media accounts,” he says.��

Highlighting the importance of regulation

Both Rowe and Elkins agree that if FIFA has financial success with this new business model at the upcoming World Cup, it could likely become a template for future global sporting events as well as future World Cups.��

“The sports world is heavily commercialised already, this is just another wave of commercialisation,” Rowe says.��

“It just shows the need for regulation,” says Elkins, “If consumers push for fairer prices and greater access to sports and entertainment, governments and regulators will act. It certainly won’t be coming from FIFA by themselves.”

The post World Cup ticket scandal: FIFA-sanctioned scalping sees prices soar past $35,000 appeared first on ����Vlog.

When Larry* decided to buy a good mate a ticket to a Melbourne concert featuring legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb, it never occurred to him that he’d be unable to easily access his ticket and then be summarily denied a refund.����

That’s because it had been a while since Larry, a septuagenarian who lives in Ballarat, grappled with the behemoth that is Ticketmaster.��Ticketmaster was the only option the venue gave for buying tickets, and in this case it was digital tickets only or you could pick it up at the venue.

Given that Webb’s fan base would mostly be seniors, who on the whole tend to be less engaged with apps or the technology of the digital age, it seems issues were bound to arise with this manner of transaction for this concert.��

“By the time I got to the end of the purchase, I realised it would have to be a mobile phone ticket,” Larry says. “But I was unable to get the Ticketmaster app to work – it actually said, ‘not working’. I also was in a quandary because I would have to give my friend my phone for 24 hours if that was the only way to get the ticket I had paid for.”

Larry then went back and forth with Ticketmaster in “a series of increasingly frustrating emails”.

“Basically, they have made it clear that there are no printed tickets – and I can’t get the phone app to work. They would not consider reimbursing me, claiming it was the artist agent’s rules. This sounds like a load of baloney to me. No birthday ticket for my friend, and no money back.”

From Larry’s point of view, Ticketmaster is the business he paid his money to and should therefore be responsible for fixing the problem.��

Ticketmaster app won’t work on older phones

����Vlog contacted Ticketmaster Australia for an explanation and were told that the Ticketmaster app works on both iPhone and Android devices, but the kicker is you have to have iOS16 or a later update to get the app on your iPhone. iOS 16 was released in September 2022 and works on iPhone 8 (released in 2017) and above. If you have an older phone and the print-at-home option is not available, you could be out of luck.

Ticketmaster told us that customers don’t have to use the app in all cases and that some tickets can be accessed through a browser on your phone and through the Apple and iOS wallets. According to Ticketmaster, it offers the print-at-home option for most of the tickets it sells. But not in the case of the Jimmy Webb concert in Melbourne.

The only other option that was available to Larry was for him or his friend to collect the ticket at the venue’s box office shortly before the show using Ticketmaster’s ‘letter of authority’. This was less than practical for Larry since Ballarat is an hour-and-a-half from Melbourne, and by this point he’d lost trust in Ticketmaster’s assurances and didn’t want to send his friend to a show that he might not be able to attend.��

Larry wistfully recalls queuing up in Melbourne in the early ’70s for tickets to see Jethro Tull, Lou Reed and Cat Stevens.

“Tickets were $14 for each of those shows. You had a stub at the end as a souvenir,” he says.

“I just think people like me are being sold a pig in a poke. Digital is one thing, but in this case it only worked for the business that has your money and won’t pay it back.”��

*Names have been changed.

The post When the Ticketmaster app leaves you empty-handed appeared first on ����Vlog.

“I was so excited because Deep Purple were the headliners and I had not seen Deep Purple live here for 11 years,” he says. Cameron was going to take a friend who had never seen the band play before.��

The festival is set to take place in Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Brisbane throughout April. But now Deep Purple and another headliner, Placebo, are no longer playing. In total, six bands have pulled out of the shows, and ticket holders have been left in the lurch.

Along with the band cancellations, venues and dates have also changed, and instead of having multiple stages, Pandemonium Rocks will now be “a one stage festival”.

Based on these changes, ticket prices have dropped to $190 for all locations except Brisbane, where prices dropped to $165. Customers who bought tickets before the changes say they paid between $250 and $275.

Ticket holders unhappy with proposed remedy

The festival has offered unhappy customers three options for compensation: an additional complimentary ticket; a partial refund of $70; or “exclusive Pandemonium hoodies valued at $100”. The organisers say the $70 partial refund equals “the difference between the initial price to the new price” of tickets.

But some customers want a full refund.��

Lachy Wilson, who bought tickets so he could see Dead Kennedys (another band that has dropped out of the line-up), says Pandemonium’s refund offer “just doesn’t fly with me, for the amount we had to pay for those tickets”.

����Vlog spoke to three festival-goers who all said they’ve had no reply from Pandemonium when they emailed about refunds.��

Pandemonium’s organisers Apex Entertainment and the ticket seller Oztix did not respond to our questions.��

Poor ticket sales blamed for changes

In an interview with the national broadcaster ABC, festival promoter Andrew McManus said the changes to the festival were primarily for financial reasons.��

“Our sales, like Splendour [In The Grass] and like all the others, were not what we expected,” he says.

“So, we had two choices: either to pull the pin, or redefine it and ensure we still have a great event and a great product and bring it back to one stage. And that was the route we decided to take.”��

Australia’s festival music scene has seen a spate of cancellations in recent months, mainly due to poor ticket sales.

What rights do ticket holders have?

When you buy tickets to events like concerts, festivals, and shows, you have rights about the performance of the service.��

This means that when an event organiser cancels or makes a ‘major change’, you may be entitled to a refund under the Australian Consumer Law.��

A major change could include when a headline act is changed, or if the date or venue changes.��

Your right to a refund will depend on the reason for the cancellation or change, the nature of the change, and the terms and conditions of the ticket.

Who to contact

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) recommends that if something goes wrong, consumers should first speak to the event’s ticketing agent.��

Then, if you are having trouble securing a refund, the ACCC advises you contact your credit card provider or bank and seek a chargeback.

If the dispute still isn’t resolved to your satisfaction after following these steps, you can contact your local consumer protection agency. They can help provide information about your rights, advise you on your options and they may also be able to help negotiate a resolution between you and the event provider.

����Vlog asked the ACCC if it will be investigating Pandemonium Rocks for not honouring refund rights, but it declined to comment.

NSW Fair Trading has received 14 complaints about the Pandemonium Rocks festival since 13 February, the majority of which were received after the changes, says a spokesperson.

A spokesperson from Queensland’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General says that consumers should take extra care when buying tickets to events that provide limited contact details, have received lots of complaints or bad reviews, or have not announced or confirmed dates, venues, and performer line-ups.

The post Can you get your money back if a festival line-up changes? appeared first on ����Vlog.

Australians have long had to accept the fact that pricing for services like airlines and Uber rides are influenced by supply and demand factors, meaning that they go up during peak periods. But we may soon see the same algorithmically-driven profit booster applied to our favourite music, sporting and other live events.��

And it may mean we end up paying a lot more than we used to.��

It’s called ‘dynamic’ or ‘in-demand’ pricing, and it’s already being used for music and sporting events in other countries. It’s happening in Australia, too, on a smaller scale, but experts say it will likely become commonplace over the next 12 months.

Dynamic or in-demand pricing involves the use of technology to determine the level of demand for tickets and price them accordingly. This could happen either before or, in some cases, after the sale-period begins.����

Dynamic pricing has been applied overseas for ticketing to big-name artists such as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen and it’s led to people being asked to pay thousands of dollars. Robert Smith, frontman of The Cure, has said the band would refuse to participate in dynamic pricing, calling the practice “a greedy scam”.��

Live Nation, one of the world’s biggest international entertainment tour operators, and owner of Ticketmaster, said earlier this year that the company expected to further expand dynamic pricing offerings into Australia. ����Vlog sent questions to Live Nation, but they did not respond.��

Demand pricing was deployed by Ticketmaster at the Australian Open Men’s Final in 2024, where the cheapest seats went for $2000 and the most expensive for $6000.��

‘Corporate greed’��

Adrian Copes travels from Sydney to Melbourne every year to watch the Formula 1 Grand Prix, so he knows to plan in advance to secure his tickets.��

Last year he purchased a $200 token, which gave him access to the pre-sale tickets for the 2024 race.��

When Adrian got on to the Ticketmaster website he couldn’t find any tickets for the recommended retail price. The only ones he could find were under the ‘in-demand’ tab, where the tickets were around $100 more expensive.��

Because he was concerned he would miss out if his ticketing browser timed out, he bought four of them.��

“Ticketmaster didn’t make it clear that in-demand would be occurring during the ticketing window. I didn’t have time to read through the policy about what in-demand was and everything,” he says.��

“We didn’t have a choice. I just had to purchase tickets or miss out.”��

Ticketmaster’s Grand Prix webpage says a “small portion” of each grandstand’s “most sought-after areas” will be allocated to in-demand pricing based on supply and demand.

Adrian says he was comparatively lucky. Many others he met at the event said they forked out hundreds of dollars above recommended retail prices.��

“It’s just corporate greed at its finest. We always go, and it’s unfair to the passionate fans that they’re able to do this,” he says.��

Dynamic pricing creates inequality

Dr Paul Crosby, a senior lecturer in economics at Macquarie University, says he expects dynamic pricing to really take off in the not too distant future in Australia.��

“The thing about dynamic pricing is it kind of fixes one problem in terms of the supply and demand issue, but it doesn’t address a really important problem of equity amongst fans and concert goers,” he says.��

“What does that do to the everyday fan who can’t afford the dynamically priced ticket? It’s not good.”��

Dr Bronwyn Coate, senior lecturer in economics at RMIT University, agrees that the inequalities it creates between fans is detrimental to the idea that access to the arts and culture should be inclusive to all.��

“If you just leave it to market forces and have access determined by not just simply willingness to pay, but by ability to pay, it creates a huge gap between those who might be the true fans, compared to those that simply have the purchasing power to afford the exorbitant prices,” she says.��

Crosby says the success or failure of dynamic pricing in Australia will hinge on fans’ willingness to participate in the system.��

“We see it with Uber, there is the airline industry, there are pubs in England now that charge dynamic pricing,” he says.��

“It still has to be adopted by the artists and the event organisers, and the fans have to buy in too. There is a real tension there, fans may not like it, but they don’t want to miss out.”��

He points to the recent Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Australia as an example, where demand outstripped supply and many fans would have been willing to pay more.

Ticket sellers respond: Cheaper tickets and a solution to scalping?��

Ticketmaster told us that artist’s teams work with promoters to determine ticket prices before they go on sale; they don’t use an algorithm that rapidly changes prices during the sale period.

“As production costs rise and scalpers continue [to find] new tactics to cheat the rules, pricing some seats closer to market value ensures artists and their crew can continue putting on shows,” a spokesperson says.��

Ticketek, which is owned by TEG, told ����Vlog dynamic pricing was “supply and demand in action” and that while prices to some events may rise, others may fall as a result.��

“Dynamic pricing of tickets in the live event space is becoming more commonplace, as artists, teams and other event owners seek to price their products more efficiently and capture market demand,” Cameron Hoy, TEG’s head of global ticketing says.

“It is also worth mentioning that the costs for staging live events have never been higher, with significant increases in production, freight and travel, all of which ultimately impact pricing.”��

Hoy went on to say that dynamic pricing was the “most effective way” of reducing ticket scalping and unauthorised secondary market resellers.��

Both Crosby and Coate questioned this claim.��

Most Australian states and territories have laws banning the reselling of tickets at above 10% of the original price. But if the original price isn’t known due to dynamic pricing, how will fans know when they are being illegally ripped off?��

“It certainly makes the question of preventing scalping more opaque,” Coate says.��

CORRECTION 12 April 2024: We removed a claim that the Ticketmaster website crashed during the pre-sale for Formula 1 Grand Prix tickets.

The post Why tickets to your favourite live events may soon cost you thousands appeared first on ����Vlog.

Arguably the world’s biggest pop star, Swift will play concerts in Melbourne and Sydney in February this year, after more than four million people attempted to buy tickets that went on sale in June.��

As the tour dates approach, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch say they have received 273 reports of people being scammed buying Swift tickets on social media, with over $135,000 lost so far.

Reports are most prevalent in New South Wales (114 reports and over $54,000 lost) and Victoria (96 reports and over $53,000 lost) – the states where she is performing.����

How the scam works��

Scammers are using hacked social media accounts to put up posts or send messages to friend lists that include a story about how they can no longer attend the concert and are wanting to sell their tickets at cost price.��

These posts are sometimes posted in community groups or among friends and appear to be from a trusted source.��

After the ticket is paid for, the contact disappears and the ticket never arrives.��

ACCC deputy chair Catrina Lowe says they are working with law enforcement to combat the scam, which she is concerned will only increase in frequency as the concert draws closer.��

“We are urging fans to be alert to scammers and think twice before seeking to buy a ticket on social media, even if it’s from a friend or community page you trust,” Lowe says.��

“Be mindful that scammers have been hacking genuine accounts to appear legitimate and are tricking trusting friends or connections into buying Taylor Swift tickets that don’t exist.”

What you should do

The ACCC and ����Vlog have warned customers against purchasing tickets from re-selling websites such as Viagogo, which sometimes mark-up tickets to concerts at illegally inflated prices and have also been susceptible to scam activity.��

The ACCC says if you’re considering buying re-sold tickets through social media (which they advise against), you should independently contact the friend who is selling the tickets via a different channel and check it is legitimate.��

They warn that scammers will often create a sense of urgency, but you should not be rushed or pressured into a quick purchase. Where possible, use platforms like Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal rather than paying by bank transfer.��

If you do fall victim to a scam, they urge you to contact your bank immediately, report it to Scamwatch, alert the platform you were scammed on and warn your friends and family.��

Platforms need to do more��

����Vlog campaigns and policy advisor Yelena Nam says digital platforms need to do more to prevent scams and that the government should strengthen their proposed scam reforms to ensure there are new obligations on the companies.��

“It’s disappointing that well-resourced tech companies continue to fail to detect, prevent and respond to scams exploiting weaknesses in their platforms. The government must urgently force digital platforms to comply with strong, mandatory obligations to protect people from harm,” she says.��

“At a minimum, digital platforms should be required to detect and prevent user accounts from being hacked by scammers and quickly restore affected user accounts to their owners. If these companies had effective measures in place, scammers would have a much harder time targeting victims,” she adds.��

The post New scam targets Taylor Swift fans on social media appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• The high price of going to the cinema
• Cinema savings tips
• The cheapest times to go to the cinema��
• Saving on extras at the cinema
• Joining clubs and hunting discounts

According to the official Roy Morgan numbers, cinema attendance is up 31% year over year, thanks to easing restrictions and some blockbuster 2023 releases like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie.��

But a trip to the cinema is far from cheap. Many of the traditionally cheaper independents have closed down, and nowadays�� going to the movies feels like a ‘sometimes’ treat for a lot of people. We look at some ways to save money and enjoy the cinema – without the big costs.

The high price of going to the cinema

In 1982 the average cost of seeing a film was $5. In 2022 the average cost had blown out to $16.26.��

And today, some ticket prices are truly eye-watering. For instance, seeing a movie on a VMAX screen at Event Cinemas in Sydney (Bondi Junction) can cost an adult as much as $31.

For tickets alone, it could cost a family of four $115 for a night at the cinema. That’s before you add in the costs of popcorn, soft drinks and an ice cream (which is mandatory for my family, unfortunately).

And NSW consumers aren’t alone. Startled expressions are exchanged throughout the country as Queenslanders (North Lakes), South Australians (Marion) and Western Australians (Inaloo) all pay the same or similar prices for a family outing to Event Cinema VMAX sessions. Hoyts prices around the country are about the same, too.

So it’s not surprising that when we asked our members whether they still thought of the movies as a cheap thrill, the response was a resounding ‘no’.

“I don’t take the kids anymore,” says Sue Brooks. “Last time I took them it cost me $90 for tickets and food!”

Leah Anderson agrees: “With prices the way they are and four kids, it’s a special day,” she says. “We can’t do it often, maybe twice a year.”

But with a bit of planning and a willingness to do without the add-ons, there are ways of reducing the cost.

Cinema savings tips

The cheapest times to go to the cinema��

Finding cheaper times to go is one of the most straightforward ways to save money. If you have a flexible schedule, going to the cinema during off-peak mornings or weekdays will almost certainly make it cheaper.

Cheap movie days

Most cinemas offer discounts on particular days of the week – traditionally Mondays or Tuesdays – when adult tickets can cost as little as $8.

(NSW) has a Discount Tuesdays program, where adults can get themselves a $15 ticket. On Mondays students have access to an even better deal: $10 tickets on all 2D movies.��

have . There are discount days for seniors, students and general admission.��

usually have . But they usually involved signing up to its Cinebuzz members program.��

As with most discounts, make sure you read the terms and conditions before getting too excited. Many cinemas charge extra for premium screens, while others don’t discount these sessions at all.

Independent cinemas

Going outside the big cities and movie complexes is another way to save money (even if you spend a bit more on petrol or public transport). They may not always have the huge screens, but local and regional independent cinemas are generally cheaper and often have a great atmosphere thanks to a community feel and historic buildings.��

Our readers reported their satisfaction with several local cinemas.��

“I now almost always go to a small community cinema,” says ����Vlog member Peter Christie.��

“It is old and dusty and plays only a selection of latest releases. I still think that the cinema is a thrill and have gone to the odd midnight premiere and totally enjoyed the experience with a group of complete strangers, some of whom still like to dress up.”

Outdoor cinemas and drive-ins have also had something of a resurgence. Some of our members say they’re happy to watch from the comfort of the car, or from a picnic blanket or deckchair. A few of these cinemas are seasonal, but can be better value than their indoor counterparts.

You pay per vehicle at Sydney’s��. Which means – if you had a big enough vehicle – six people could watch a movie for $35.

Saving on extras at the cinema

3D and 4D movies

Even 3D pioneer and director of Avatar (2009) James Cameron says that seeing movies in 3D doesn’t always add to the quality of the experience – but it can add to the price. However, with 3D all but gone from cinemas these days, you’re unlikely to feel the loss of missing out.

On the other hand, Event Cinemas has moved onwards and upwards to 4D, a service that mixes rollercoaster elements into the movie experience. It’s very gimmicky, but may be worth doing at least once for the right movie. It’s not cheap though – tickets usually cost around $33.

Snacks

The smell of popcorn goes hand in hand with the movie experience, but it may not be worth $10 for a tub, or $7 for a sugary drink. Avoiding the candy bar and eating before or after the movie can really bring your costs down.

Back in 2019 – pre-COVID – we investigated the high costs of food in some cinemas. We bought a bag of snakes (180g), a packet of crisps (90g), one small soft drink (600ml) and a small popcorn at a Hoyts Candy Bar and compared the total with buying snacks from the supermarket. The candy bar food came to $21.60. Downstairs at Coles, identical or comparable items came to just $11.55 – almost half the price.

Some moviegoers come prepared and bring their own snacks and drinks to the movies. A number of cinemas have ‘no outside food’ rules, but many have more relaxed policies and are fine for you to bring your own snacks and water, provided it’s not hot food.

Given the variety of food and drink rules, it’s a good idea to call beforehand and check if you’re not sure. Or just risk it for the biscuit.

Joining clubs and hunting discounts

Cinema rewards

To encourage customer loyalty and return visits, many cinemas offer their members discounted or free tickets, cheap days and snacks.��

Some schemes, such as Event Cinema’s Cinebuzz and Hoyts Rewards Membership, cost nothing to join.��

Palace Cinemas has two available options: a premium tier and a free tier. At $13.50 we reckon the premium option pays for itself, particularly if you’re a regular visitor. It comes with a complimentary free ticket and allows for discounts for you and a friend. The Ritz Cinema Movie Club costs $22 per year ($13.50 for seniors) and gives you year round access to $8 tickets on Tuesday. Probably worth it for hardcore cinephiles.��

Discounts and vouchers

If you’re unwilling or unable to join up at the cinema, a third-party discounter may do it for you. Members of some motoring associations, telcos and health funds – including , , , , , and – are eligible for discounted tickets. The downside is that they generally have to be bought in advance from the third party, so you can’t just rock up at your local movie house, flash your BUPA membership card and expect to pay less on the spot.

Websites such as and often have movie ticket offers. There are also booklets such as , which have two-for-one offers and discounted movie tickets, although the membership booklet itself costs $70.

����Vlog tip: Check the fine print of all discounts carefully, as it may say you can’t use them for all venues and session times.

The post How to save money on movie tickets appeared first on ����Vlog.

Tickets for the Australian tour of arguably the world’s biggest pop star, Taylor Swift, are a hot commodity – and ticket scalpers know it.��

Limited VIP packages to Swift’s Sydney and Melbourne shows went on sale on Monday. Scalpers wasted no time in exploiting the high demand, seeking to resell the tickets at excessively high mark-ups.��

A check by ����Vlog on Monday found that tickets to the Sydney concert were being sold for prices as high as $2678 per ticket on the reselling website Viagogo. Another major ticket reselling website, The Ticket Merchant, was reselling tickets for up to $1999 each.

Tickets to the Sydney concert were being sold for prices as high as $2678 per ticket on the reselling website Viagogo

The original sale price for the VIP packages sold through the official ticket seller, Ticketek, were as high as $1249. Anti-scalping legislation in NSW prevents the reselling of tickets for more than 10% above the original price, so the resold tickets on Viagogo and The Ticket Merchant are possibly in breach of the law.��

The Ticket Merchant responds

The Ticket Merchant says they have a compliance team who monitors the website and removes listings in breach of state legislation.��

“If a ticket is sold in breach of these legislations, the customer is refunded on identification of the breach,” a spokesperson says.��

“Taylor Swift has a huge number of face-value price points, with tickets available to be purchased from multiple sources. All of these allocations often come in with different price points, which makes policing listings quite difficult.��

“The process we follow is to ask the seller to provide the face value when listing and if something doesn’t appear to be in compliance we ask for evidence and remove the listing.

“At present, there are no listings live on our website for this event in Sydney.”��

A ����Vlog check found the listings available earlier on Monday had been taken down by late Monday afternoon.��

Viagogo’s bad history

Viagogo did not initially respond to our questions on Monday, but since the announcement about the concert’s upgraded status, a Viagogo spokesperson has contacted ����Vlog and says:��“In response to Victoria declaring the Taylor Swift tour a major event, we have taken the necessary measures to ensure our platform is in full compliance with federal and state law in Australia.”

In 2020, the Swiss-based company Viagogo was handed a $7 million fine in a Federal Court case brought on by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).��

It came after ����Vlog awarded the company a well-deserved Shonky Award in 2017 for misleading and ripping off customers. The company has been the subject of numerous NSW Office of Fair Trading complaints and investigations.��

Ticketing websites risk penalties

According to the NSW Office of Fair Trading, the maximum penalties for breaching ticket scalping laws are $110,000 for a corporation or $22,000 for an individual.��

����Vlog head of policy and government relations Patrick Veyret says the conduct was “disappointing and shocking”.��

“This appears to be a flagrant disregard of ticket scalping laws in New South Wales. The conduct should firmly be in the crosshairs of consumer protection regulators,” he says.

Huge prices not the only pitfall for buyers

As well as paying inflated prices, ����Vlog has reported extensively on customers who purchased tickets through reselling websites only to never receive their tickets, receive fake tickets, or be turned away at the venue. In NSW the ticket issuer can also cancel the ticket resold as a part of state legislation.��

It’s why consumers should steer clear of unauthorised ticket resellers and only buy tickets from the official website or official reseller. In the case of the Swift concert, Ticketek says there will be an official reselling website from September onwards.��

Weak laws in Victoria��

Swift’s Eras Tour will present shows in Sydney and Melbourne. In Victoria, weaker ticket-scalping legislation meant scalpers may have been able to resell Taylor Swift tickets at hugely inflated prices without breaching the law.��

The Victorian legislation says the Minister must first designate a sporting or entertainment event a “major event” before anti-scalping legislation affects ticket reselling and when a limit of 10% above the original sale price is imposed.��

As of Monday, the Swift concert was not listed on the Victorian government’s website as a “major event”, despite it being held at Australia’s biggest stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The government did eventually designate the Eras Tour as a major event on Tuesday afternoon.

Veyret says the designation rule means Victoria’s laws lag behind other states and territories.��

“We need clear and consistent federal ticket scalping rules in Australia. We currently have a piecemeal approach to ticket scalping regulations across different states and territories. People deserve the same consumer protections across the country,” he says.��

Veyret says there is also a role for Google to play in taking down or not accepting advertising from illegal resellers, who often pay to appear at the top of search results when fans are looking for tickets.��

“Digital platforms need to take greater responsibility for promoting the websites of illegal resellers. Digital platforms need to be more proactive in protecting people from the harms of potentially unlawful ticket scalping,” he says.��

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On Tuesday afternoon, ����Vlog found ads on The Ticket Merchant’s website selling tickets to the Saturday Sydney Swans versus Collingwood Preliminary Finals game at the SCG for $399 each.��

The law in New South Wales, as in most other states, limits ticket reselling to 110% of the original purchase price of the ticket.

According to the AFL website, tickets to week three of the finals series at the SCG range from $65 to $193, meaning the $399 price tag is well above the legal mark-up for any ticket to the game.��

Some of the inflated tickets were still on sale as of Thursday.��

The Office of Fair Trading NSW says on its website that the “maximum penalties for breaching ticket scalping laws are $110,000 for a corporation or $22,000 for an individual. Fair Trading can also issue a $550 fine for any offence under the laws, including one-off breaches”.

We’ve previously written about the issues with ticket reselling websites such as Viagogo – the Switzerland-based company found to have breached anti-ticket scalping legislation on many occasions. In 2020 the company was fined $7 million in a case brought by the ACCC. (A check by ����Vlog found that Viagogo were not selling tickets to this weekend’s AFL game.)

But it appears the issue isn’t limited to offshore operators.��

The Ticket Merchant’s website states that the company is proudly Melbourne-based, and ASIC documents show the company registered to a South Melbourne location since 2019.

The company did not respond to emailed questions from ����Vlog about the AFL Finals tickets.��

The ACCC warns customers thinking about buying tickets from a reselling website that they may be turned away from venues, not receive the ticket they paid for, or receive a fake ticket.

The NSW Office of Fair Trading told ����Vlog it was illegal to resell tickets for profit, but declined to comment further on the case.��

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When Rose’s favourite childhood band The Cat Empire announced they’d be breaking up in September and holding a final farewell concert when Melbourne’s lockdown ended, it was an event she wasn’t going to miss.

“I thought, I definitely want to make it to this show after almost two years of lockdown in Melbourne, and one of my favourite bands is breaking up after 20 years,” she tells ����Vlog.

On the morning tickets went on sale, she Google-searched the concert and found herself on the website of Viagogo. She knew tickets were selling fast, so when she saw they still had tickets available she booked four of them for her and her friends.

“The early warning sign was that the tickets were really expensive, but by that point I had already selected them and the show was almost sold out. I just thought there must have been more expensive sections to the show,” she says.��

“There was a countdown clock on the site, so I just panicked and bought them. The show sold out in ten minutes, so I didn’t have time to really look into it,” she says.

Unbeknown to Rose at the time, Viagogo is not an official ticketing site, the tickets she bought were posted by a reseller, and she had, in all likelihood, just lost $1400 to what was basically a scam.

Like many who buy tickets through Viagogo, Rose has since confirmed with the concert venue that the tickets she paid for don’t actually exist. She is in the process of trying to get a refund either from Viagogo or her bank, the Commonwealth Bank, but isn’t sure if she’ll succeed.

Viagogo’s business model

In 2020, Viagogo were fined $7 million in a court case brought on by the ACCC. They’re appealing the fine and have been granted a stay order, meaning they don’t have to pay until the appeal is heard.

“Viagogo misled thousands of consumers into buying tickets at inflated prices when they created a false sense of urgency by suggesting tickets were scarce and when they advertised tickets at a lower price by not including unavoidable fees,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said at the time.

But even being fined $7 million seems to have changed little to nothing at the Switzerland-based company.

The company works off a ‘secondary ticketing’ model. Viagogo doesn’t sell tickets themselves, but provides a platform for resellers to sell tickets, in a similar way to Ebay or Gumtree. They then charge a booking fee on top of the tickets.

But Dr Jess Richards from Western Sydney University School of Business says what’s most concerning is the way the company doesn’t make its business model known to customers.

“This website is very sophisticated. They give people the impression they are buying tickets from an authorised seller, which is quite dangerous,” she tells ����Vlog.

“They purchase advertising space so they appear at the top of the Google search for all kinds of concerts and sporting events.”

Many tickets sold on Viagogo don’t exist

Richards says the issue with Viagogo is not just the marked-up and overpriced ticket prices, but the validity of the tickets themselves. In many cases, like Rose’s, the tickets sold on Viagogo don’t actually exist and buyers are turned away at the door. Venues are also not obliged to honour tickets sold through resale sites.����

“Secondary ticketing is a huge problem in Australia … these platforms have a guarantee that supposedly protects consumers if they are sold invalid tickets or replacement or refund tickets, [but] there have been hundreds of examples when this hasn’t been honoured,” she says.

Legislation: ‘National approach needed’

There is no federal legislation banning or regulating the practice of ticket scalping, however almost all Australian states and territories have their own legislation that deals with the practice.��

Tasmania and the Northern Territory are the only two jurisdictions without legislation.

The recent AFL finals games that were played in Tasmania (due to the COVID lockdowns in other states) led to scalped tickets being sold at more than double the original sales price.

In the lead-up to the AFL Grand Final, which was played in Perth, Western Australia finally legislated its long-mooted ticket scalping laws, bringing them into line with most other states.

Most states cap the mark-up for legally reselling a ticket at 10% of the original sales price, though some jurisdictions’ laws are stronger than others.

In Victoria, where Rose bought her ticket, the legislation only applies to events designated as ‘major events’ by the state government, so didn’t apply to the concert she wanted to attend.��

Richards says the time is well overdue for national legislation to bring consistency and certainty to the regulation of ticket scalping.

“We need to turn a corner and have a more uniform national regulatory scheme against the practice. Already, most of the states have these rules established, but I think a national approach would be more easily understood not just by buyers, but also sellers themselves,” she says.

States investigating, but yet to act

In many cases Viagogo appears to be skirting the edges of the law, and in some cases, may well be breaching it.

In July, New South Wales Fair Trading announced it was investigating the company after receiving at least 36 complaints since the start of the year. They told ����Vlog they couldn’t provide an update while the investigation was ongoing.

In Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria received 334 contacts regarding event ticketing and ticket resales in the 2020–21 financial year, compared to 655 during 2019–20. Contacts include complaints and inquiries.

That drop-off in cases was likely due to the decrease in live events in Victoria because of COVID lockdowns, but there are now concerns cases will spike again as NSW and Victoria exit lockdowns and live events come back.

In response to a previous article written by ����Vlog, Viagogo says it’s committed to complying with jurisdictional regulations.��

“Viagogo is committed to complying with legislation in all markets we operate in, including NSW, and when we are notified of listings that are not compliant, we act quickly to remove them,” a spokesperson said.��

“We look forward to continuing to productively engage with regulators to ensure that our website is compliant and the safe and transparent marketplace we offer continues to help customers gain access to events worldwide.”

Victims pile up

Rae Bassett is one of the administrators of a Facebook group called Victims of Viagogo, which has been helping those who have lost money to Viagogo since 2018. The group is a support network and a place for people to share experiences and tips about trying to get their money back.

“Things have been a bit quieter due to COVID, but we are still getting cases, new members joining and seeking support,” Rae tells ����Vlog.

“One lady turned up and bought NRL Grand Final tickets in Queensland (in October) only to be turned away at the gate as the tickets were fake. None of the states really have a good model for protecting fans yet; even the Western Australian legislation doesn’t go far enough.”

She said the state-based legislation assumed Viagogo wanted to do the right thing by consumers and act in good faith, but that, in her opinion, that is not their business model.

Rae says it’s a shame that state and federal governments didn’t use the down period of the last year or so to strengthen legislation in preparation for the surge of ticket-scalping issues they’re expecting when lockdowns end and live events resume.��

“Only the ACCC has prosecuted. Other states have legislation, but they don’t want to follow through. No one is acting to protect the consumer,” she says.

She adds there was also a role for the sports and entertainment industries to play in terms of educating fans about the dangers of sites like Viagogo.��

����Vlog supports call for national laws

Erin Turner, campaigns and communication director at ����Vlog, says strong and consistent national laws were needed to deal with companies like Viagogo.��

“In late 2019, the federal government ran a consultation on potential national laws that would improve ticket resale rights for consumers. Nothing has happened on this since. With the economy opening up and more people booking tickets, it’s time to revive these national laws,” she says.��

In the absence of such laws she urged consumers to be careful, not clicking on ads in the Google search results, looking up who is the official ticket seller of a venue, and never buying from Viagogo.��

If you’ve been caught up in ticket scalping you should contact your state’s consumer protection agency.

The post Fears ticket scalping will surge post-lockdown as laws fail to rein in Viagogo appeared first on ����Vlog.

It’s been a long road of shameless consumer abuse for ticket reseller Viagogo.

In 2017, we handed the Swiss company a particularly well-deserved Shonky award, for both ripping off event-goers with inflated ticket prices and making it all but impossible to get in touch and get a refund.

In 2018, NSW made the kind of ticket scalping that is Viagogo’s stock in trade illegal, ruling that ticket resellers could charge no more than 10% above the original ticket price.

In 2020, Viagogo copped a $7 million fine in federal court in a case brought by the ACCC.

“Viagogo misled thousands of consumers into buying tickets at inflated prices when they created a false sense of urgency by suggesting tickets were scarce and when they advertised tickets at a lower price by not including unavoidable fees,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said at the time.

(Viagogo has reportedly been granted a temporary reprieve from paying the fine due to the impact of COVID-19 on live events.)

Extreme markups still in play

Yet in recent months ����Vlog found there was a ticket for a Paul Kelly concert listed for $741 on Viagogo, up from its original price of $90.

And a ticket for ’80s band Simple Minds was recently on sale on Viagogo for as much as $1014, when the original ticket prices ranged from $109 to $249.

Clearly the Swiss-based business is not getting the message, or perhaps it’s making more money by flouting the rules than it pays in fines.

NSW Fair Trading on the case

This year, with the pandemic still among us, Fair Trading has received 36 complaints about Viagogo. By now, the nature of the complaints would be wearyingly familiar to many Australians. They include:

• exorbitant markups that amount to ticket scalping
• cancelled events that were not refunded
• misleading customers into thinking Viagogo was the authorised original seller
• tickets not being delivered when promised.

Fair Trading Commissioner Rose Webb says the state’s anti-scalping rules did have the desired effect for a while, but it wasn’t long before Viagogo was up to its old tricks.

“We did briefly see a drop off in complaints but then we saw a spike at the end of 2019,” Webb says. “When the pandemic hit, complaints obviously dropped off again as events were not able to go ahead.”

“However, now that events are back on the agenda, we have seen a spike again and despite Viagogo being explicitly warned and receiving a $7 million fine from the ACCC in 2020, they continue to flout the rules.”

“We will be investigating and using our powers to stop any unlawful behaviour,” Webb says.

If you’ve witnessed or experienced ticket scalping in NSW,�� with Fair Trading.

Consumers in other states and territories can lodge complaints at their respective ��

(Update: Viagogo responded to our story shortly after publication.)��

Viagogo responds

Despite the NSW Trading complaints and the instances of ticket scalping we found on its site, Viagogo says it’s committed to complying with jurisdictional regulations.��

“Viagogo is committed to complying with legislation in all markets we operate in, including NSW, and when we are notified of listings that are not compliant, we act quickly to remove them,” a spokesperson said.��

“We look forward to continuing to productively engage with regulators to ensure that our website is compliant and the safe and transparent marketplace we offer continues to help customers gain access to events worldwide.”

The post NSW Fair Trading investigating Viagogo for unlawful behaviour appeared first on ����Vlog.