TicketOne is to employ PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to oversee its selling of U2 tickets in Italy for the band’s forthcoming tour.
The official ticket seller for U2’s July 15 gig at Rome’s Olympic Stadium said it wants to ensure “maximum transparency” during the selling process following a series of scandals for Italy’s ticketing sector. TicketOne added in a statement signed by promoter Live Nation that “all available tickets for the show will be channelled and managed solely through the TicketOne ticketing system”.
Fans in Italy were furious last year when Coldplay and Bruce Springsteen tickets sold out within minutes, but were soon being resold at huge mark-ups on secondary sites. Live Nation Italy chief executive Roberto De Luca then admitted on a television show that his company passes tickets to reselling sites. After a number of investigations into the industry were announced, legislation to sanction against the reselling of tickets in Italy was passed by Parliament last month.
Presale tickets for The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 become available this week before general sale begins on Monday, January 16. Four tickets can be purchased during the presale reserved for members of the fan club, and a maximum of six tickets at the general sale.
A TicketOne statement said: “With the aim of ensuring maximum transparency in the smooth running of operations according to the procedures and in accordance with their terms and conditions of purchase, TicketOne has involved – for the first time in the history of the industry – PwC in order to verify the application of distribution processes and sales data.
“TicketOne will be the only official circuit sales involved in the distribution of tickets.”
Meanwhile, consumer group Codacons said it will be closely watching the sales process and has invited fans to notify it of tickets being resold at higher prices.
“We will check that tickets for the concert of U2 are not offered for sale on other sites at prices increased and we are ready for new complaints when cases of online ticket touting should occur,” said Codacons president.
“We invite all fans of the group and users who want to attend the event, to notify us in the next few days of the presence of tickets on secondary sites sold at different rates than the official ones.
“We have also decided to cooperate with TicketOne and all Italians artists by putting at their disposal initiatives to stop the odious phenomenon of online ticket touting.”
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