Online changes and publicity have helped a Border venue reduce ticket fraud as it reports an 80 per cent drop in bookings through Viagogo over the past six weeks.
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Albury Entertainment Centre expects to reinstate print-at-home tickets on its booking site within weeks after suspending the function in late May owing to an influx of Viagogo transactions.
Some patrons had found tickets not bought through the venue were overpriced, double booked or offered seats that did not exist.
Venue manager Brendan Maher said recent sold-out shows like country singer Lee Kernaghan and Menopause the Musical revealed the centre's measures had been effective.
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"There's no future listings on Viagogo and we only had two transactions that got through the system before we could block it and we were able to accommodate those people on the night," he said.
"It's fantastic for us that people have obviously heeded the warning that we've been issuing and that they're going through the right channels to collect their tickets to ensure that they're not burned through inflated prices."
A Viagogo spokesman told The Border Mail all tickets on the site were valid and backed by a guarantee.
"Viagogo is a safe and secure platform that makes it possible for people to resell and buy tickets that are legal and valid," he said.
"To protect purchasers Viagogo doesn't pay the seller until the buyer has been able to attend the event.
"Viagogo provides a service that stops tickets being sold in an unsecure way on the black market.
"Sellers set their own prices, which may be above or below the original face value.
"Where demand is high and tickets are limited, prices can increase.
"But at the same time, if a ticket's price is too high it generally doesn't sell."
Albury Entertainment Centre will replace its ticketing system in October because its present provider is withdrawing from the Australasian market.
Mr Maher said this was unrelated to the earlier problems, "however with the new system there will be better mechanisms to detect any fraudulent systems".
Reactivating the print-at-home function relied on providing a separate payment gateway that would have a fraud guard installed.
"We're anticipating probably in the next week or two we'll be able to switch it back on and then we'll be monitoring how we go from there," he said.
There had been little negative reaction to the present situation, with more tickets being mailed out and increased venue collection.
"I think people have been understanding the reasons why and that we're doing the best to protect the community from inflated ticket prices," Mr Maher said.
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