UK secondary ticketers’ paid marketing dominates search results to dupe buyers

An investigation by UK anti-scalper group FanFair Alliance has found that secondary ticketing platforms such as Viagogo, StubHub and Get Me In! are regularlybuying the paid spots at the top of search enginesresults lists, appearing in the first or second spot onas many as nine in ten results pages when punters search for event tickets.

So unsuspecting consumers are fooled into buying tickets from them at inflated prices, even thoughtickets are still available at face value fromauthorised sellers.

FanFair Alliance was set up by last year by managers, promoters, associations and agents to tackle online scalping.

It investigated ticket sales for 100 tours heading for the UK – from Metallica and Run The Jewels to Cliff Richard – and discovered that a secondary ticketing website had paid to appear aboveGoogle search results on 77% of occasions.

Controversial ticket resale platform Viagogo topped search rankings 65 times for these 100 tours – presenting itself on Google as an “Official Site”.

Only six of these tours were genuinely sold out.

A similar pattern emerged when it investigated 33 music festivals, including the Proms, the Eden Sessions, Cambridge Folk Festival and Secret Garden Party.

Of these 33 events – of which, again, only sixwere sold out – a secondary site had paid to top Google search on 17 occasions. Secondary sites were among the top 2 search results on 91% of occasions.

TMN searched for tickets for another upcoming event, Bestival (held in Dorset in September) this morning and found Viagogo SEM occupying the second slot. The festival is not yet sold out.

“This is a real problem for UK audiences. If you’re looking to attend a gig or festival, you’d probably expect a search engine to act as a trusted guide and direct you to the legitimate ticket seller,” said Adam Webb, Campaign Manager for FanFair Alliance.

“However, we consistently see secondary ticketing platforms, led by Viagogo, using paid search to dominate search rankings and even masquerade as ‘official’ sellers – causing considerable confusion in the process.

“FanFair is contacted on a daily basis by consumers who have been duped by this kind of advertising and led straight into the arms of a ticket tout.”

According to FanFair, secondary platforms have budget for paidsearch enginemarketingbecause of the high (20% to 30%) service fees they charge music and sports fans.