'Hundreds of V Festival tickets never turned up'

V Festival 2006

Agency slammed by fans after paid-for tickets never show

The SOS Master Tickets agency has been slammed by up to 800 fans who paid for V Festival tickets that were never delivered to them.

The punters had paid up to £180 for weekend passes to the festival, which took place on two sites, in Staffordshire and Chelmsford, last weekend (August 16 and 17).

However, BBC News reports that fans were not sent the tickets they had paid for, but were instead told to go to locations near the festival sites to pick up their tickets from agency representatives.

The representatives did not turn up or answer their mobile phones.

Islington Council's Trading Standards team is investigating the company, the website of which has since been taken offline.

Livid fans have slammed SOS Master Tickets, while Graham Burns, chairman of the Association of Secondary Ticket Agencies, described the saga as a "rip-off".

Bob Angus, director of the V Festival, said he was "sorry" to hear of the fans' plight, and urged them to buy tickets through official outlets in the future.

SOS Master Tickets had taken money for tickets for various other live music events in the future. With the company severing contact lines, many fans are expecting to be disappointed.