Formula 1 has warned fans not to attempt to purchase tickets to the 2025 live launch event from unofficial ticket resale websites.
Tickets for Formula 1’s ‘F1 75 Live’ on 18th February went on sale today on the official website for the O2 Arena in London, which will host the event.Fans quickly took to social media to express disappointment when many looking to purchase tickets were told the event had already sold out. Within minutes, tickets appeared on secondary ticket market sites for several times their original values.
Formula 1 has confirmed that tickets for the event sold out in 45 minutes due to the high demand. However, in a statement to RaceFans, FOM urged fans to only seek resale tickets through The O2 Arena’s official resale partner AXS due to concerns tickets sold elsewhere may not be legitimate.
“We are aware that a few tickets for our season launch event at The O2 have been listed on unofficial resale websites,” read the statement. “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 theo2.co.uk or via AXS Official Resale.”
The F1 75 Live event is the first coordinated F1 launch event in the sport’s history and will see all ten teams present their liveries for the 2025 season on the same day. Typically, teams have held their own livery and car reveal events over February leading up to pre-season testing. Formula 1 has confirmed the event will be broadcast live.
The 2025 pre-season is expected to attract particular attention due to the volume of driver moves taking place through the field. Most notably, Lewis Hamilton will move from Mercedes to Ferrari, with Carlos Sainz Jnr transferring to Williams. Several rookies will embark on their first full seasons in the series, including Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman at Haas, Jack Doohan for Alpine and Gabriel Bortoleto joining Sauber.
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SPArtacus
15th November 2024, 19:56
Why pay $70-$150 to sit in the bleachers to look at cars that aren’t even their new cars and being too far away to even admire the details of what I hope will at least be their 2024 cars? I could see paying $25 to get an up close look at all the 2024 cars in their 2025 liveries if I lived nearby.
I mean, it might be worth $150 if you were guaranteed to see MBS arguing with FIA reps and drivers up close and then firing and/or fining them left and right.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
15th November 2024, 20:24
i think i would rather watch a rerun of cheers myself. At least they started their act as a TV show.
I luv chicken
16th November 2024, 14:11
Williams will not be in attendance, as their cars will have crashed, on the way to the venue.
Mark Tucker
16th November 2024, 16:21
Exactly this. You are being taken advantage of.
Maciek (@maciek)
15th November 2024, 21:44
I really would go one further and warn everyone not to buy them at all
SteveR (@stever)
16th November 2024, 18:36
Yeah, the fraud is the event itself.
Mandy Granger
16th November 2024, 11:49
very disappointed start from 10:00am till last that night still no tickets yyyyyyyy
Coventry Climax
16th November 2024, 13:02
How are these sites more fraudulent than the official one?
The Dolphins
16th November 2024, 14:42
Valid point! AXS is the only authorized fraudulent retailer.
anon
16th November 2024, 18:27
Coventry Climax, I’m guessing you haven’t looked at the history of fines and legal action being taken against some of the more prominent sites that re-sell tickets then?
Viagogo, for example, has been repeatedly fined for breaching the terms and conditions on selling tickets or allowing dubious tickets to be sold at inflated prices in multiple jurisdictions (perhaps as many as 40 cases since 2016).
In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) took the company to court for anti-consumer behaviour in 2018, such as allowing people to sell tickets even when reselling the tickets was banned and would invalidate the ticket and using deceptive and misleading adverts. Even then, despite having a court order against the site, they initially kept using manipulative sales tactics and allowing fraudulent ticket sales. It was only when the CMA re-started legal proceedings to have the directors of the company prosecuted for fraud in 2019 that the company finally began cleaning up it’s act, although they are still on the CMA’s watchlist for potential further abusive behaviour.
Similarly, that site has also been prosecuted in Australia – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) successfully prosecuted them for “false and misleading representations when reselling tickets” and fined them $7 million in 2019, and although Viagogo did appeal, the courts ruled in favour of the ACCC earlier this year and upheld the fine.
The Italian authorities, meanwhile, have been repeatedly prosecuting Viagogo for illegal ticket sales – they fined them €3.7 million in 2021, €23.5 million in 2022 and €12 million in 2023 for various different cases – whilst, in 2023, the French authorities fined them €400,000 for illegal ticket sales related to the Rugby World Cup.
Coventry Climax
17th November 2024, 10:26
You are so massively missing my point about the huge financial scam this joint team presentation event actually is.
It get the feeling (minor understatement) you’re getting preoccupied with me as a person for some reason, not for what I’m saying. I’d like to know where that came from please, as I don’t usually intend to pick a row with anyone on a personal level, and I’m quite sure you’ve not been an exception.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th November 2024, 10:09
The tickets from AXS will presumably work as advertised (assuming they’re bought from the official F1 part of AXS and not on the reseller market – I’m not sure how that part is controlled).
Tickets from other resellers may not work due to enforcement policies. So instead of paying for a ticket of questionable value (the event may actually interest some people, especially any Londoners for whom a train ticket to Birmingham for Autosport the previous month is out of budget), the punter would be paying for a ticket of no value at all.
Imre (@f1mre)
16th November 2024, 20:47
Although just livery reveals nowadays, it was nice that almost all teams got their 15 minutes of fame before the new season.
Now we’ll just browse through the liveries and don’t remember most of them the next day.
SteveR (@stever)
17th November 2024, 4:10
Fame? Right.
Mark (@mrcento)
16th November 2024, 23:57
I actually find this funny… no, seriously.
It was already just a cynical way for F1 to try and grab cash of the ‘super fan’, commercialising something that didn’t need to be made commercial (and will actually be worse than the old way, given it will be 10 show cars just with a 2025 livery), all for what? So a company makes a few more quid?, So what are they now apparently so worried about?
Somebody else but them making a few quid on their cash grab?, or pretending they care about somebody fleecing people that they themselves are already fleecing trying to sell and ‘event’ that is in effect no better than looking at 10 renders of a new livery on an old car?
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th November 2024, 10:09
“Somebody else but them making a few quid” is exactly the worry.