Resale giant Viagogo slams Raye's hand-checking of 'hundreds of thousands' of ticket registrations as 'absurd' and blames primary sellers

Raye's team took the rare step of sifting sign-ups by hand after touts flooded registration for her 23 October Royal Albert Hall show. The singer said bots generated 'hundreds of thousands of fake registrations'. Viagogo insists 'bot activity occurs on primary ticketing platforms', not resale sites. The firm is now urging the government to examine the whole industry.

Viagogo wants an airline-style 'open distribution' model so tickets can be sold through multiple firms.

The group declared flatly: 'The ticketing system is broken.'

Viagogo operates under the StubHub brand in the US.