Revealed: The worst rip-off prices being charged online for gigs in Leeds

It comes despite the Government promising to ban ticket touts using specialised software to bulk buy tickets for popular shows and then immediately list them on resale website at hugely-inflated prices.

Performers have also been attempting to fight back against their fans being ripped off with new security measures such as ‘paperless tickets’.

But research by the Evening Post demonstrates just how commonplace inflated prices for popular shows are - with some tickets for forthcoming shows in Leeds being sold for over 700 per cent more than the original value.

Tickets to watch cult comedy band Flight of the Conchords at the First Direct Arena in March were officially priced at £25 to £55, but were on sale on eBay-owned resale website StubHub for £399 each. When ticket “fees” were added, the price per ticket shot up to £478.31.

Viagogo, another resale site, charges both buyers and sellers a “service fee” which varies by event and in the case of those buying tickets is only displayed once they get to the check out stage of purchasing.

The full price can only be viewed after providing the site with personal details, while warnings repeatedly flash up the tickets may be lost to other bidders if not purchased within minutes. Tickets to see singer Paloma Faith at the First Direct Arena, which had an official sale price of £35 to £45 each, were on sale on Viagogo. One listed for sale at £105 had £36 added in a ‘VAT and booking fee’, as well as a further £10 for delivery charges; taking the total price above £150.

When Black Sabbath announced a seven-date UK tour in 2017, including one show at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, 11,695 tickets were listed for re-sale within minutes of the general sale going live - close to the entire capacity of the city’s biggest music venue.

The unfortunate situation is occurring despite the best efforts of many people in the entertainment industries. In July 2016, managers of artists including Arctic Monkeys, One Direction and Iron Maiden set up a pressure group called FanFair Alliance calling for a crackdown on such websites. The organisation estimates that secondary ticketing in the UK - based on resales from four platforms; Viagogo, StubHub, GetMeIn and Seatwave - is worth more than £1bn a year.

And big acts like Iron Maiden are increasingly adopting paperless ticketing, in which concertgoers present photographic ID and their debit or credit cards at the doors of a venue in a bid to cut down on unscrupulous reselling.

But the situation is complicated by the ownership of some of the secondary ticketing sites. Live Nation, which owns official ticketing outlet Ticketmaster, was praised last year for its work with Iron Maiden on preventing ticket reselling for the band’s Book of Souls tour which visited Leeds; a policy calculated to have saved the rock band’s fans a combined £1m on marked-up prices.

But Live Nation also owns two of the biggest secondary ticketing websites, Seatwave and GetMeIn. Research by The Yorkshire Post shows that when you search for tickets to see celebrity scientist Professor Brian Cox at Leeds Arena next month by Googling ‘Brian Cox Leeds’, a sponsored advert for GetMeIn appears in the search results ahead of Ticketmaster, with a Viagogo advert also above the official site. GetMeIn, whose advert describes itself as a ‘Ticketmaster Marketplace’, is offering seats to the show for £165.94 each - despite face value tickets still being available on Ticketmaster for £51.60.

Adam Webb, campaign manager from the FanFair Alliance, says situations like that may lead to people buying more expensive tickets than they need to.

One way the Government is moving to act is by introducing new legislation to ban ticket touts from using automated software which allows them to dodge security measures and snap up more tickets than allowed by event organisers. A new criminal offence will mean those who break the law in this way could face unlimited fines.

Webb says: “The Government’s announcement is genuinely a welcome step forward. If properly enforced, these new laws should act as a deterrent to those who harvest tickets with specialised software and rip off British audiences. However, it’s important that these actions are not viewed in isolation. Dedicated touts have other means of accessing tickets. For instance, some will use multiple credit cards or multiple identities. These also need to be tackled. Not all touts are ‘bot’ users.

“On a more positive note, the UK’s ticket resale market is currently under growing scrutiny from the Competition & Markets Authority, National Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority.

“If these agencies can also deliver decisive actions, then FanFair Alliance is optimistic that 2018 could be a watershed year in fixing what has become a national embarrassment.”

Music industry losing out

Many different elements of the music industry are being hurt by online touts, says Adam Gillison of Leeds shop Jumbo Records.

Gillison says: “Anything that is dragging down or giving a bad reputation to live music does impact us all. When our customers tell us about their experiences, it is a bit dispiriting to be honest. People come in and say they wanted to take their kid to a concert but couldn’t afford the resale prices.

“We had somebody who wanted to take their son to see a concert and they couldn’t afford to go because the tickets were being sold at such inflated prices on the internet. But when they got the venue, there were still empty seats left.

“Something needs to be done to try and improve it.”

Viagogo doesn't set ticket prices

Viagogo says it does not set ticket prices charged on its website.

A spokesman said: “Viagogo is a marketplace and doesn’t buy or sell tickets. Viagogo provides a platform for third party sellers to sell tickets to event goers. Viagogo does not set ticket prices, sellers set their own prices, which may be above or below the original face value.

“Where demand is high and tickets are limited, prices increase.”

The company said it had no further comment when asked by The Yorkshire Post about whether it considers the way in which prices are displayed on its website to be adequate and how it justifies booking fees that are higher than the cost of face value tickets in some cases.

Live Nation did not respond to a request for comment.