Image via carlosgardel/Shutterstock
StubHub is already the largest secondary ticketing marketplace in the US, but it’s now seeking to grow its platform across Europe, focusing first on the UK and Ireland. We spoke to director Fiona Chow about how StubHub works and the potential benefits for last-minute buyers, as well as the company’s expansion plans and its charitable work with the Musical Youth Foundation.
Part of the eBay family, StubHub is a specialist ticket service providing a safe and transparent platform for the buying and reselling of tickets to all sorts of events. Because StubHub doesn’t own the tickets sold on its platform, it doesn’t dictate prices, and all prices advertised on the site include VAT, delivery and PayPal fees, so the price buyers see is the price they pay.
At the moment, Irish users can buy tickets on StubHub for events all over the world, with the UK being the most popular destination. But the platform is now seeking to expand its reach and allow Irish users to sell online by the end of this year.
Research into ticket-buying in the UK and Ireland over the last decade estimates that €147m has been lost through unused or cancelled tickets, with one in five adults suffering a total loss from tickets they had purchased, and 43pc having suffered financially from having to cancel or sell on tickets.
StubHub also notes the last-minute purchasing habits of the modern-day ticket-buyer and for this has created Last Minute Services (LMS), which lets users buy tickets right up to the event time and collect them from a designated StubHub LMS Centre.
Often, tickets being resold at the last minute come in much lower than face value, so there are savings to be had by buyers who are brave enough to wait it out.
Expansion in Ireland is just the start of an ambitious European plan for StubHub and, with eBay’s offices based in Blanchardstown, Dublin, more growth will lead to more jobs in the city.
Tickets image via carlosgardel/Shutterstock
