UK government to ban resale of tickets above face value to stamp out touts
“This government is putting fans first," said Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.
By Nick Reilly
The UK government has announced plans to make it illegal for tickets to concerts and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost, in a bid to stamp out ticket touting.
The controversial practice has been scrutinised in recent years, in part due to automated bots buying huge sums of tickets online, before listing them on resale sites at grossly inflated prices.
Now, the government has announced that ticket resale above face value will be illegal, to be defined in legislation as the original ticket price plus fees such as service charges. In addition, service fees charged by resale platforms will be capped to prevent the shortfall being made up by ticket resellers.
The announcement comes after Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Rolling Stone UK earlier this year that it was “time up for ticket touts,” while the likes of Dua Lipa, Sam Fender and Coldplay all urged action last week.
“Gone are the days when ticket touting was a guy standing outside a stadium with a handful of tickets,” Nandy explained.
“This is a really sophisticated operation that is now leeching millions of pounds, not just out of the pockets of fans, but the music industry as a whole, and we’re determined that that’s going to stop.”
Other moves include resale platforms having a legal duty to monitor and enforce compliance with the rules, while individuals will be banned from reselling from more tickets than the amount they were allowed to buy in the original sale.
Nandy said today: “For too long, ticket touts have ripped off fans, using bots to snap up batches of tickets and resell them at sky-high prices. They’ve become a shadow industry on resale sites, acting without consequence.
“This government is putting fans first. Our new proposals will shut down the touts’ racket and make world-class music, comedy, theatre and sport affordable for everyone.”
According to the government, these measures could save fans around £112 million annually, with 900,000 more tickets bought directly from primary sellers each year. Inclusive of all fees paid, the average ticket price paid by fans on the resale market could be reduced by £37.
Dan Smith, lead singer of Bastille, said: “It’s such great news that the government has stepped up and introduced a price cap on resale tickets – something I’ve been campaigning for alongside O2 and the FanFair Alliance for a long time. It’s a good step towards protecting music fans from being ripped off and will allow more genuine fans to see their favourite artists perform at face value prices. I am welcoming a world where there are no more resellers snapping up all of the tickets and massively inflating their prices.”
The new rules will apply to any platform reselling tickets to UK fans, including secondary ticketing platforms and social media websites. Businesses who break the regulations could be subject to financial penalties of up to 10% of global turnover from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
A statement from Live Nation Entertainment added: “Live Nation fully supports the UK government’s plan to ban ticket resale above face value. Ticketmaster already limits all resale in the UK to face value prices, and this is another major step forward for fans — cracking down on exploitative touting to help keep live events accessible. We encourage others around the world to adopt similar fan-first policies.”