Cris Miller is confident that his musical hero, Bob Marley, would have approved of how his company makes its profits. “I think after some education, yeah, he would,” says the global managing director of Viagogo, who has flown from New York to London as part of a mission to dispel what he sees as unfair myths about the ticketing company.
Viagogo is a website that facilitates the resale of tickets to concerts, theatres and sporting events, taking a slice of commission on each sale.
For ordinary consumers it can be a way to make their money back on gigs they are unable, for whatever reason, to attend. But legions of ticket touts – “professional resellers” in Miller’s terminology – also use Viagogo, sometimes employing questionable techniques to harvest tickets en masse before selling them on to passionate fans, often at eye-watering mark-ups.
The result has been years of negative publicity, denunciation by a British government minister, a bitter legal war with Ed Sheeran, not to mention dismal ratings on social media and the consumer reviews website Trustpilot.
Yet Viagogo has powered on regardless. Fans’ desperation to see the artists and sports teams they love has fuelled its continued success, including a strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Put simply, fans want tickets and Viagogo usually has some.
Now, though, the company is facing a potentially catastrophic threat to its business in the UK, which is its second-biggest market. Last month, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would cap ticket resale prices if he became prime minister.
While the amount of profit Viagogo makes is not made public – its parent company is based in the US corporate secrecy haven of Delaware – it takes commissions of about 25% or more on the price of every ticket it sells in the UK, where it dominates a market which had an estimated value of £350m in 2019.
If resale were to be capped, Viagogo’s UK business model could crumble, with seismic consequences for its long-held ambition to float on the stock market – the next step after it completed a $4bn merger with rival StubHub in 2021.
In the face of this looming threat, the company has been splashing out on sponsored content and advertising with outlets it knows fans trust, such as the music website NME and sports website The Athletic.
Behind the scenes, Miller has been meeting Labour and Tory politicians, seeking to persuade them that though their manifesto pledge is “well-intentioned”, “price caps just don’t work”.
“What happens with price caps is that the highest-demand part of the market, where you might see prices go above the original price, will just get driven underground,” says Miller, 46, who has been with Viagogo since it was founded by US billionaire Eric Baker in 2006.
The apparent crux of Miller’s argument is that it provides a safe platform for ticket resale – an alternative to the street corner tout or illicit website that might simply rip fans off and run.
Viagogo says outright scams, often run via social media, have increased in countries that have restricted or banned resale, such as Australia or Ireland. It does not provide any data or hard evidence of this, but Miller insists it is “common knowledge”.
But two recent court cases have raised questions about the difference between scammers and some of the traders who have listed on Viagogo. “Fuck me. I have rinsed some twat on Via[gogo] today,” wrote one professional reseller, according to evidence at his trial, which saw two people convicted earlier this year – after two others had pleaded guilty – for their role in a £6.5m ticket fraud – initially exposed by the Observer.
“Not unusual though, is it?” his boss wrote back.
How does Miller react to the suggestion that exchanges like these betray the egregious practices used by some of the touts, who are, in effect, Viagogo’s business partners?
“They’re not business partners. They supply tickets on the website,” he replies, hurriedly adding that Viagogo provided information to the investigation that led to their convictions.
The company condemned “bad actors” but Miller declines to answer when asked whether Viagogo may have benefited, however inadvertently, from the proceeds of their crimes. That probe kicked off when National Trading Standards took part in a raid on Viagogo’s London office in 2017.
Miller, who is using a co-working space during his flying visit to the UK, also declines to disclose what proportion of Viagogo’s listings – of which there are “50m […] at any given time” have been posted by professional resellers – defined as people who sell more than 100 tickets a year.
He does, though, admit that Viagogo has made mistakes. High-profile gaffes include the reselling, at least twice, of tickets to events held in aid of cancer charities. A prolonged battle in 2018 with the Competition and Markets Authority ultimately saw Viagogo slapped with a court order. Then there was Miller’s own no-show at a select committee hearing, a highly unusual snub to parliament.
“We got that one wrong,” admits Miller, who was “empty-chaired” at the session as a gesture of political rebuke.
He is more bullish about his company’s adherence to consumer regulations, though. “The compliance thing is very, very important to me,” he says, adding that Viagogo goes “above and beyond” the CMA’s requirements.
What, then, of Viagogo listings that appear to stretch the limits of compliance? The BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend, in Luton, is a good example. One seller is offering 56 tickets, another 24. Could this be an example of “speculative selling”, a fraudulent practice – which Viagogo says is banned – where touts list tickets they do not actually have and then seek to fulfil the order later on?
Might this indicate that the seller has ignored restrictions set by the original sales platform limiting purchases to two per person, and warning that breaches could see tickets cancelled?
Consumer laws state that Viagogo must warn customers if any such restrictions apply – but it does not. The company insisted its listings for Big Weekend comply with consumer law. “We go through and we take a look at all the fulfilment records of sellers,” says Miller.
Sellers who let fans down do not get paid and can be banned from the website, he says, adding that Viagogo cannot spot every single dodgy listing straight away. Customers who are left empty-handed are offered a refund, he says, although it does not cover the cost of any accommodation or travel they may have booked, not to mention their disappointment.
According to Miller, in the long run Viagogo is a help to fans who would otherwise be shut out by event organisers, who are not transparent about how many tickets are available and often prioritise VIPs and sponsors.
But if the access that Viagogo offers usually comes with a higher price tag, does it not mean that it is the wealthiest who get through the turnstile, while the touts – and Viagogo – profit?
“Someone doesn’t have to be, like, poor to be a fan,” Miller says, adding that a proportion of tickets – he will not say how many – are sold at below face value, citing Beyoncé’s recent tour as an example.
For all the talk of offering access, or of consumer protection from scammers, Miller’s fallback defence of Viagogo’s business model is ultimately ideological: the dogma of free markets. “We believe that someone that buys a ticket has the right to resell,” he says.
Could fans not simply use “face value” websites such as Twickets? Wouldn’t improved ticketing technology solve the consumer protection risk that Viagogo claims is its priority?
Miller insists that any tech that restricts how, or for how much profit, someone chooses to transfer their ticket, is “anti-competitive” and ultimately “unfair to fans”.
Try telling that to Bob Marley.
CV
Age 46
Family “The most important thing to me in this world.”
Education University of Arizona.
Pay “It’s a privilege to work in an industry that allows me to experience the world through live events.”
Last holiday Florida.
Best advice he’s been given “Always search for truth and always be curious.”
Biggest career mistake “Not following my intuition.”
Phrase he overuses “I try not to use them.”
How he relaxes Going to see any live music.
