Nothing is worse than buying tickets for a live event, only to have your plans disrupted or one of your friends decide that they don’t want to come. You have already spent the money, and you’re left holding a perfectly valid ticket that is likely to end up in the bin.
If you can’t find a buyer within your circle of family and friends or social media networks, you’re left with the risky option of selling to a ticket tout outside the event or competing with millions of listings on selling sites like eBay.
If you are in this situation, there are a few platforms on the web that can be lifesavers. Today we are focusing on Viagogo. Once you have signed up for a new account or logged in with Facebook, you’re ready to go. But how exactly does Viagogo work?
What is Viagogo?
Viagogo was launched in 2006 by Eric Baker, the co-founder of American ticket exchange website StubHub. It has since grown to become one of the biggest professional ticket broker websites globally. Viagogo provides a safe, secure, and reliable platform for people to sell and buy spare and unused tickets.
Ticket fraud is huge, and a large percentage of this type of fraud is happening on selling sites such as Ebay and Gumtree. By making a legitimate and protected space dedicated solely to reselling tickets, Viagogo is taking the pain out of the process of millions of ticket transactions. By tailoring their website for this one specific type of trade, Viagogo boasts a built-in audience of ticket buyers that other selling platforms cannot provide.
By tailoring their website for this one specific type of trade, Viagogo boasts a built-in audience of ticket buyers that other selling platforms cannot provide.
Find your event
Once you have created your Viagogo account (which takes less than a few minutes) and signed in, selling your spare tickets is remarkably easy. From the Viagogo homepage, you will see a ‘Sell Tickets’ button. This brings up a search bar where you can look up the event you have tickets for. You can search for listings based on the name of the event, city or venue.
Alternatively, underneath the search, a number of the most popular events are listed in the categories sport, concert, theatre and festival. It’s worth a quick check to see if your event is featured.
Once you have found your event, you choose the exact date and venue of your tickets. Be careful here, as many events occur on consecutive nights at the same venue, so make sure you click the event that matches your ticket. If you have tickets for a multi-day event such as a music festival, you’ll need to select 1-day, 2-day or full event, so again take care to choose the right ticket.
You can set your price, based on Viagogo’s recommendation and the costs of other tickets to the same event.
Add details and price
The next page is where you enter a few basic details about your tickets. The first option is paper or electronic tickets, so don’t worry if your ticket is a PDF file hiding away in your email inbox – you can still sell it. Next is the number of tickets. If you have consecutive seat numbers you can sell them all on one listing, if not you will have to create multiple entries. Next, punch in the seat numbers.
After this, the site will ask if your ticket has any restrictions, such as 18+ or wheelchair users only, and then if your ticket comes with add-ons like dinner included or free parking. After you’ve declared you’re not a ticket trader or employee of Viagogo, you can set your price, based on Viagogo’s recommendation and the costs of other tickets to the same event. Once you finish here, your tickets are ready to go live!
Will I actually sell my tickets?
Viagogo is one of the biggest ticket-selling platforms globally, so your chances of selling them there are much higher than other selling sites. Obviously, the demand for the event plays a huge factor and determines what price your ticket will sell for. Viagogo adds a booking fee and tax to your price (31.69%), and this can put off potential buyers. If you are desperate to sell your ticket, lowering your price is the best option to increase your sale chances. Considering that an unsold ticket earns you no money, this is often a wise route.
Always consider if your ticket is electronic or physical. E-tickets can be sent instantly, whereas paper copies must be shipped in time for the buyer to make it to the event.
Selling to someone you know is always the ideal option. But, if time is against you, Viagogo provides a much-needed service, and it definitely beats trying to sell your ticket on a street corner on the night of your event.
