General: Concert Tickets

As the good weather is here, a lot of you are certainly thinking about live music and sporting events (I know I am!). Whenever I need anything, I tend to go straight to Google and see what pops up, but I was recently asked to take a look at Viagogo - a name I've seen pop up all over the place. As well as being official partners for events such as the Reading Festival, 02 Wireless or the Leeds Festival, they also have their own marketplace for buying and selling tickets online.

There were issues this year with Glastonbury tickets that were sold on eBay being canceled and Live 8 listings being pulled. According to the eBay T&C, you can only sell first time tickets (i.e. no reselling) so people may well be looking for alternative ways of moving unwanted tickets on.

Briefly looking over the instructions at Viagogo, it seems it is free to list your ticket for sale and these can be sold as an auction, buy it now - or uniquely, declining in price. This means the closer you get to the event, the lower the price gets. Once a concert is over, that ticket is worth nothing - so get all you can for it!

Unlike eBay, Viagogo guarantees the tickets will arrive on time, and also guarantees payment as it goes through them. This apparently clears up the murky area of ticket touting. According to this Wikipedia entry (as I couldn't find it listed on their site), they charge a 10% fee to buyers, and a 15% fee to sellers, which is quite reasonable considering the guarantees.

If you're like me, I tend to buy a pair of tickets to an event, and if I can't find someone to go with me, I'll try and sell it closer to the time. Despite this being a sponsored review, I'll certainly be considering Viagogo next time I need to sell my spare ticket, or even purchasing them in the first place.