Robbie Williams's management accused of putting tickets straight onto resale sites for high prices

Ie:Music is facing accusations of selling “platinum” tickets for inflated prices 
Controversy: Robbie Williams's management face claims of putting tickets directly on to resale ticketing websites
Getty Images
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Robbie Williams's management team today faced accusations that it is placing tickets directly on to resale ticketing websites at higher prices.

Top tickets for the star’s 2017 Heavy Entertainment stadium tour on the Get Me In and Seatwave sites were priced at up to £65 more than those for a similar seat on Ticketmaster.

The “platinum” tickets came straight from Williams’s management team Ie:Music and the proceeds will go directly to them, claimed the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.

The tickets investigated by the BBC were for Williams’s gig at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester, on June 2 this year and were priced at £95 on Ticketmaster before fees.

But on the Get Me In site, adjacent “platinum” seats at the same event were priced at £160 before fees.

A note on the site says that “the seller of this ticket is the organiser of the event or a person acting on behalf of the organiser of the event”.

Latest music reviews

1/168

Ticketmaster, which owns Get Me In and Seatwave, said the tickets on the resale sites were “priced according to demand, in consultation with our clients, the event organisers”.

Ticketmaster is owned by promoter Live Nation, which is organising the Williams gigs.

A statement to the BBC from Ticketmaster said: “Platinum tickets are a very small percentage of the best seats that are priced according to demand, in consultation with our clients, the event organisers.

“The UK live events industry has been successfully using platinum for many years so that the full value of these tickets goes back to the rights holders and not to resellers.”

In November 2015 Ie:Music signed a petition that said: “We as artists, managers and agents deplore the increasing industrial-scale abuse and insider exploitation of tickets for music, arts and sports events by ticket touts, and their online associates and facilitators.”

No one at Ie:Music was available for comment.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT