When Danny bought tickets to see Deftones in Crystal Palace Park, he was not expecting to be initiated into an apparent subterfuge. Shortly before the south London gig, Viagogo, the resale platform that sold him the tickets, sent him a scanned copy of a passport ID page belonging to a Dutch man he had never met. A Viagogo staff member told Danny to flash the document if asked by door staff for the ID of the 'lead booker'.
'It felt like we were being asked to take part in a deliberate deception,' said Danny, who asked for his name to be changed. 'I know it's not the world's biggest crime but I run a business and it's not a good look.' Danny was not the only one who received the ID instruction. In an apparent breach of data protection laws, Viagogo mistakenly copied him into an email with several strangers, all of whom received a link to the same scanned passport.
The reason for this curious pre-gig ritual is that Ticketmaster, the primary ticket agent for the Deftones gig, had expressly forbidden unauthorised resale in its terms and conditions. To get round this, evidence seen by the Guardian indicates, Viagogo arranged the sale on its own platform. Viagogo then appears to have told the seller to send the tickets through Ticketmaster's own transfer systems, which are intended for groups of friends to share tickets between them at face value.
According to ticketing expert Reg Walker, the seller was a well-known tout and prolific user of ticket-buying 'bots', software deployed to harvest tickets illegally and resell them for big profits. 'It [the sale] is potentially a fraud offence because if the buyer gets stopped, they may not be let in,' said Walker, who works with venues to stop touts. Danny and his friends were not challenged at the turnstile and were able to see the band.
Kieran Maguire, an author and academic specialising in football finance, was desperate to see Fontaines DC in London's Finsbury Park, so he bought a ticket from Viagogo for £92, including fees. On the day of the gig, just as he was about to buy his train ticket to London, Viagogo told him the ticket was not available after all. 'I'd noticed by now that tickets were on sale [on Viagogo] for £200,' said Maguire. 'I'm not daft, I know what probably happened. The vendor is now able to sell it for more so they've withdrawn it and made it available to somebody else.' Viagogo said it apologised for failing to provide tickets after the sale 'fell through' and said Maguire received a full refund.
Earlier this year the government opened a consultation on capping for-profit resale at between zero and 30%, making good on Labour's general election manifesto. Resale at face value plus a service charge, such as through Ticketmaster's internal system and third-party providers such as Twickets, would be unaffected. Viagogo said it had strict anti-fraud measures in place and denied it encouraged a touting culture.
