Resale site Viagogo has described singer Raye’s decision to assess ticket applications by hand as "absurd", arguing that automated bots can only be tackled by opening up the primary sales sector to form a "fairer" system.
Attributing the surge in touts employing bots to primary ticket outlets, the secondary platform has urged the government to examine the wider industry to establish a level playing field.
It follows criticism from Raye last week against touts who "overwhelmed" registration for her 23 October performance at the Royal Albert Hall, generating "hundreds of thousands of fake registrations".
In response, representatives for the ‘Where Is My Husband!’ artist undertook the rare step of sifting through the list by hand to spot "real fans" and thwart the automated attempts.
A Viagogo spokesperson told the Press Association: “It is absurd that artists and their teams have to manually sift through hundreds of thousands of registrations to identify real fans.
“Fans deserve a fair chance to access the events they love.”
They added: “Criticism of the resale market often frames bots as a secondary-market problem.
“However, bot activity occurs on primary ticketing platforms.
“We need an open and interconnected ticketing market to tackle the problem at its source.”
Viagogo is pushing for an “open distribution” model that allows sports and live entertainment tickets to be sold through more than one firm.
The company – which operates under the StubHub brand in the US – wants the industry to adopt an airline-style ticketing model, which it believes would boost competition for fans, help drive down prices and crack down on ticket-buying by bots.
The group told PA: “The ticketing system is broken and fans continue to face the same systemic issues.
“Bots target tickets when they first go on sale, on primary ticketing sites.
“Tackling this requires primary sellers to share information with regulators when their systems are breached.
“We strongly support UK anti-bot legislation and have proposed a solution built on industry-wide collaboration.”
It added: “Open ticketing would allow authorised primary and resale platforms to share technology and ticketing information, helping identify bots and suspicious activity, verify tickets and give fans greater choice and protection.”
It is already competing with primary ticket sellers in the US and markets globally, and is expanding this into the UK to shake up the market dominated by the likes of Ticketmaster.
Raj Beri, chief business officer of StubHub North America and Viagogo, told PA the group had already seen a 400 pe rcent jump globally in events where it is the primary ticket seller over its third quarter.
The push comes ahead of a planned crackdown in Britain on reselling tickets for profit, with a proposed new law to make it illegal for tickets to be resold above face value, plus unavoidable fees.
While the government has yet to come back with concrete plans for the ban and how it would work, Viagogo is urging ministers to review the entire sector and pave the way for reforms to allow more competition.
The firm said: “We’re ready to work with the government on practical, pro-competitive reforms to create a fairer ticketing industry.
“Real progress means tackling the problem across the whole ecosystem, starting with open ticketing.”
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