Business News Legal Live Business

Viagogo hits back at Kili boss’s awards speech

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 16 November 2018

Viagogo has confirmed that its war of words with Kilimanjaro Live boss Stuart Galbraith is still very much ongoing in its response to his acceptance speech at this week’s Artist & Manager Awards in London.

The AMAs presented an award to Kili and fellow promoter DHP Family on Wednesday night in recognition of their combined efforts to tackle the touts on the most recent Ed Sheeran UK tour.

Accepting the award, Galbraith said that those efforts had saved fans £800,000 and cost Viagogo nearly £2 million. He also reported that most touts hadn’t bothered trying to acquire tickets for Sheeran’s next round of shows because they knew Kili would likely cancel them, forcing Viagogo and the tout to refund the buyer.

He then took direct aim at Viagogo, which he dubbed the last “bad actor” in the UK ticketing market. Noting that Viagogo had said it would sue Kili over its anti-touting strategy, he ironically thanked the rogue secondary ticketing company saying: “Thank you for threatening to sue us. Thank you for not following it through”.

However, in a response to the speech yesterday, Viagogo said that it intended to go through with its legal action. A spokesperson told CMU: “Ed’s promoter, Stuart Galbraith of Kilimanjaro, made grandiose claims that he could cancel any tickets listed on Viagogo but he openly admitted in a BBC interview that he cannot. In fact he is now being sued for these and other fraudulent claims he made during the last Ed Sheeran tour”.

Reacting to Galbraith’s optimism that fans were learning that tickets bought on Viagogo may not actually get them into a show, the resale site delivered its customary statement, insisting that: “The tickets sold on Viagogo’s platform are genuine tickets that have been sold on by the original ticket purchaser in good faith”.

It went on: “Event organisers sometimes make claims that they will deny entry to people who have purchased resold tickets. These types of entry restrictions are highly unfair and in our view, unenforceable and illegal. Therefore, as with all tickets on our platform, Viagogo customers should feel confident that they will gain entry to the event, and that is why we back every ticket with the Viagogo guarantee”.

Of course the UK Consumer Rights Act explicitly states that promoters can cancel touted tickets providing the accompanying terms and conditions allow such a thing. But who can be bothered reading that?

And so the war of words continues.