Higher-ups at two major Australian venues are in hot water after allegedly misusing tickets that had been allocated for family and friends. Two board members at the Perth-based State Government agency VenuesWest are under investigation, while a former commercial officer at Etihad Stadium has had a redundancy appeal overturned.
As The Sunday Times reports, VenuesWest have launched an investigation into two of its board members after they misused tickets to Katy Perry’s Perth Arena concert by giving them to family and friends and not attending the concert themselves, which puts them in breach of VenuesWest policy.
Sport and Recreation Minister Mia Davies said on Saturday that she’d been informed that VenuesWest was investigating the circumstances surrounding the breaches. “I am taking this matter very seriously and if there has been a contravention of the policy I expect appropriate action to follow,” said Ms Davies.
According to VenuesWest chairman Graham Partridge, “The assertion of inappropriate use of tickets” at Perry’s November concert was raised during a board meeting on Thursday night. Two unidentified board members claimed they’d received four tickets each, which were use by family members and friends.
However, since neither board member attended the show, this was a breach of board policy. “Board members and staff must accompany their guests to the allocated ticket event. This is a breach of VenuesWest Ticket Allocation and Corporate Hospitality Policy and I am investigating the matter,” Mr Partridge told The Sunday Times.
Mr Partridge added that there was no way of knowing whether other board members had also breached the ticket policy without an admission, and that he would speak to the two offending members before making a decision on their future.
Perry’s two Perth performances were reportedly priced at $160 for general admission tickets and up to $200 for reserved seats. This would put the value of the eight tickets reserved for company use at potentially $1,600.
However, the actions of the two VenuesWest board members arguably pales in comparison to the actions of former Etihad Stadium senior executive Nicholas Sautner. Before his dismissal, the former commercial officer at the Melbourne venue reportedly used concert tickets as “currency”.
As Smart Company reports, the Federal Court has found that Etihad Stadium was justified in sacking former VFL player Sautner, throwing out a previous decision made by the County Court that awarded Mr Sautner more than $150,000 as part of a redundancy payout.
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The court found that Mr Sautner had been using his fringe benefits, including several free Lady Gaga tickets, to procure items including new locks on his house, a new car battery, “mates rates” for repair work to his house, “family and friends” rates for a gym membership, vouchers for Bunnings, and flowers.
The five judges presiding over the case found that while Melbourne Stadiums Limited (MSL), the venue’s owner, had made free tickets available for “personal use”, they were not intended to provide supplementary income to staff.
“While tickets allocated to staff for ‘personal use’ could undoubtedly be given to friends, family and acquaintances as the staff member saw fit, it is inconceivable that [Etihad] contemplated that by ‘personal use’ a staff member would treat the tickets as the equivalent of cash and use them to barter for goods and services from third parties,” the judgment read.
In a particularly startling revelation, the court also found that Sautner had made “disparaging, disrespectful and derogatory comments” about the chief executive of Melbourne Stadiums Limited and had taken photographs of him sleeping after a work function without his consent.
Speaking to SmartCompany, fraud expert Brett Warfield of Warfield and Associates said payments in kind and contra benefits such as free tickets are very common in many industries and can be difficult for companies to monitor. “The bigger the company the more difficult it can be,” he said.
According to Warfield, “A pool of tickets that are intended for promotional or marketing purposes are a bit difficult [to monitor] because they are freebies and give-aways anyway.” If companies wish to prevent abuse, he said, “A registry should be set up as to where they go, so there can be an internal audit.”
