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ED SHEERAN’S manager Stuart Camp has given evidence against two ticket touts who bulk-bought tickets to the artiste’s charity show and sold them for almost four times their face value.
Peter Hunter and David Smith are alleged to have used fake names and addresses to buy more than 1,000 tickets to Sheeran’s concerts before reselling them immediately on secondary ticketing sites such as Viagogo, Leeds Crown Court heard in November.
According to the Press Association, Camp told the court on 6 December how he had tried to stamp out the resale of Sheeran’s concerts tickets after seeing how they were being resold for his Teenage Cancer Trust show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March 2017.
Camp told the court that Sheeran had performed for free, with tickets costing £75 plus a booking fee, but he saw some offered for £7,000 on Viagogo.
“I bet none was donated to charity,” he said. “This is absurd. We just really wanted to make sure we weren’t in that situation again.”
Camp said he decided to put a no-resale clause in the terms and conditions of tickets for the stadium leg of Sheeran’s worldwide Divide tour.
He explained that he wrote to the big four secondary ticket sites informing them of the change and three complied. He said Viagogo “ignored it”.
Hunter and Smith are also said to have targeted events by artistes including Gary Barlow, Coldplay and Taylor Swift, and the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing tours.
They both deny fraudulent trading and possessing an article for fraud. The trial continues.
