At the concert, yes, but only the millionaires. The limit of Ticket for a front row seat at the Maneskin concert arrived to taste the stratospheric number of 1,182,999 euros in the circuit of the so-called secondary ticketing it provoked controversy. And it ended up on the table tooCommunications Guarantee Authoritywho decided to sanction with a Maximum fine of 12 million euros Viagogo, The US company, also based in Switzerland, sells online tickets for concerts, sporting events and shows. The practice of buying entire ticket packages and reselling them on online platforms has been the focus of the authorities for some time and was also the subject of a tightening by the EU Commission in a directive recently implemented by Italy. The EU has already effectively banned this practice. But the attack can obviously be circumvented. These are tickets that in many cases cost astronomical numbers, forcing fans, even the most ardent, not to buy. And the fines, albeit hefty, are very small for a company that, according to a reading of AGCOM’s 2020 preliminary investigation findings, “did not disclose its financial situation” but that “according to international press reports, in November 2019 the acquisition has announced the operator Stubhub for a price of $4.05 billion to create a player with a global footprint with consolidated sales of $15 billion in 2020.” In short, 12 million can easily be included on a giant’s balance sheet under the “business risks” heading.
However, Agcom recalls that the fine (12,240,000 euros to be precise) is not the first: the same company was in fact the subject of other sanction procedures (3.7 million in 2020, 23.5 million in 2022). The investigations carried out in collaboration with Fiamme Gialle revealed that in 2022 tickets for 68 events were sold or in any case placed on the company’s website, at prices even ten times higher than the nominal prices for live performances of Italian and international events artists such as Maneskin, Blanco, Renato Zero and Cirque du Soleil, in violation of industry regulations.
Consumer groups applaud who have filed a complaint against Viagogo with the authorities and the public prosecutor and are therefore now talking about a “victory”: Among the most recent cases reported by Codacons, recalls President Carlo Rienzi, is that of the Maneskin concert on April 28, 2022 in the Arena di Verona “, the tickets were sold out in a few minutes on the official channels, appeared on the secondary ticket platforms at record prices of up to 1,182,999 euros for a front row seat, while in the official outlets the maximum price of a ticket was 86.25 Euro”. “It is incredible that tickets continue to be sold, the prices of which are even 10 times higher than the real ones– says Massimiliano Dona of Unc – despite the numerous condemnations by the authorities and the intervention of the legislator, which has put a stop to them intolerable and hateful speculation”.