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Formula 1 has issued a warning about fraudulent resale listings after fans missed out on buying tickets for next year’s season launch featuring all 10 teams.
F1 will hold its first-ever collective launch event on February 18 in London with all 10 teams revealing their liveries on the night, drivers and team figures appearing on stage, and entertainment acts due to perform as well.
After a limited pre-sale on Thursday, tickets went on sale on Friday morning (European time).
The majority of places at the near-20,000 capacity venue were intended for fans, with a minority understood to have been reserved for key stakeholders including the teams.
However, some tickets appear to have been bought just to be resold at an inflated price – a common problem with modern ticketed events.
Immediately after the event sold out, tickets were being listed online for vastly higher prices. But F1 has warned that any tickets bought via an unofficial resale platform will not be accepted at the venue.
“We are aware that a few tickets for our season launch event at The O2 have been listed on unofficial resale websites,” a statement given to The Race read.
“We can confirm that this is against the terms and conditions of sale and that any tickets bought through an unofficial resale platform are not valid for entry.
“Working with The O2 we have also identified that a number of the listings are fraudulent.
“We advise all our fans to only buy tickets through http://theo2.co.uk or via AXS Official Resale.”
F1 worked to set a price for the tickets that was not prohibitive and avoided deploying controversial, unpopular methods like dynamic pricing.
The three tiers of costs were supposedly set in line with being a unique event, a two-hour live show with entertainment aspects and the extreme fees that are visible on some resale sites suggest the ticket prices could have been set higher.
The fact so many fans have missed out reflects the popularity of the new event, which is a big break from F1’s traditional launch season activity, and the limited capacity of the arena - which has also unsurprisingly been taken advantage of by some with no intention of attending.
Whatever efforts F1 made to try to put fans first for this event is inevitably no consolation to those who missed out. And while that was always going to be the case for many, given the finite space available, it’s a shame that not all the tickets intended for fans have gone to them the proper way.
And more could still have their enthusiasm to attend exploited if they are tricked or tempted into buying a ticket, for an inflated cost, that apparently won't even gain them access to the event.
