EE Glasto comp furore takes another twist

The row began when a terms and conditions blunder meant the winner was not given the Glastonbury Festival tickets he was informed he had won – but now it has emerged he may have copied his “winning” entry from an artist.

Twitter user @Terry_Finnegan started the #GiveTerryHisGlastoTickets hashtag campaign last week, which amassed hundreds of tweets demanding he was given a pair of tickets to the festival after he believed he had fairly won an EE competition. 

The competition asked participants to recreate famous album covers using unusual materials, offering free Glastonbury tickets to 10 winners.  The competition was then extended to Facebook entrants, but EE’s promotions team failed to change the terms and conditions, meaning it did not have enough pairs of tickets to award the 15 winners and instead offered them Ticketmaster vouchers of equal value. 

EE eventually caved to the social media pressure and scrambled to find tickets for Finnegan. In the meantime, rival O2 offered the individual a free pass to its Academy venues for a year to take advantage of the buzz around the hashtag.

It has now emerged that artist and designer Aaron Savage originally created a Calvin Harris Lego album cover two years ago, which looks very similar to the image Finnegan used to enter the competition. 

Savage has contacted EE and O2 on Twitter alleging Finnegan’s entry copied his artwork from 2011. The image – as well as other Lego album recreations such as Blondie’s Parallel Lines and Blur Best Of – has previously featured in national press such as The Sun and MailOnline.

An EE spokeswoman told Marketing Week: “This has been brought to our attention, as the original criteria for the competition stated that all entries had to be original. We are in touch with both artist Aaron Savage and Terry Finnegan so we can get to the bottom of this.”

An O2 spokesman told Marketing Week: “We’re aware that it looks very much like Terry Finnegan stole his EE Glastonbury competition entry from Aaron Savage and, this morning, have tweeted Aaron to offer him a year’s supply of O2 Academy tickets in recognition of his artwork. Terry’s story grabbed the nation’s attention, including celebrities such as Lennox Lewis, and it appears like we were all taken in by a very convincing plight.”

O2’s offer still stands, but it is unknown whether EE will withdraw the tickets from Finnegan.

Finnegan could not be reached for comment. He has since set his Twitter account to “Protected”.