The UK Government’s Plan To ‘Tackle Greedy Ticket Touts’

The UK government today announced that it wants to consult on measures to clamp down on ticket touts, including a cap on the price of resold tickets for concerts, live sport, and other events.

According to the government’s department for culture, media, and sport, “fans wanting to get tickets for popular tours and events” were “coming up against professional touts hoarding tickets and reselling at heavily inflated prices, while others have been caught out by a lack of transparency over the system of dynamic pricing.”

Through analysis, the UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has found that the typical mark-up on tickets sold on the secondary market was “more than 50 per cent.”

Investigation by the UK’s consumer protection agency Trading Standards uncovered “evidence of tickets being resold for up to six times their original cost. According to research by Virgin Media O2, ticket touts cost music fans an extra £145 million [$179 million] per year.”

The CMA has estimated the value of tickets sold in 2019 through secondary ticketing platforms to be about £350 million ($431 million), with around 1.9 million tickets sold on these platforms. 1.9 million tickets accounted for around 5% to 6% of the number of primary tickets sold in 2019.

All the reasons why the UK government today, Jan. 10, launched a public consultation which “sets out a range of measures in the ticket resale market that aim to better protect fans, improve access to live events and support the growth of the UK’s world leading live events sector,” according to the press release.

See: O2 Study Highlights Confusion In The Ticket Resale Market

The consultation will explore a range of options to make ticket resales fairer and more transparent, which include:

• Introducing a cap on the price of ticket resales – with the consultation seeking views on a range from the original price to up to a 30% uplift, and limiting the number of tickets resellers can list to the maximum they are allowed to purchase on the primary market. These measures would prevent organized touts reselling a large number of tickets at vastly inflated prices and disincentivise industrial scale touting.
• Increasing the accountability of ticket resale websites and apps – creating new legal obligations so that they are held responsible by Trading Standards and the Competition and Market Authority for the accuracy of information they provide to fans.  
• Strengthening consumer enforcement – review of existing legislation to bring it up to date, including stronger fines and a new licensing regime for re-sale platforms to increase enforcement of protections for consumers. Trading Standards can already issue fines of up to £5,000 ($6,100) for ticketing rule breaches. The consultation will look into whether this cap should be increased.

Alongside the consultation, ministers have launched a call for evidence into pricing practices in the live events sector, such as dynamic pricing.

Often this was done to sell unsold tickets and fill seats, but, in some cases, a lack of transparency has meant customers being caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.

The call for evidence will “seek views on how the ticketing system in the live events sector is working for fans and whether the current system provides sufficient protection from unfair practices.” It will furthermore “consider whether there is potential for new harms to consumers to arise from emerging business trends including the use of new technologies and dynamic pricing.”

The press release concludes: “The ticket resale market plays a valuable role for consumers and needs to work better for fans. It can provide a legitimate and safe way to transfer unwanted tickets to help more people to attend events. It can also ensure revenues flow back to the creative and live events sector, without fans facing inflated prices due to touts. These measures would apply to a range of events covering sport, music, theatre, comedy and beyond.”

The consultation and call for evidence will be open for 12 weeks, from Friday, Jan. 10, and closing on April 4, 2025. The so-called “Putting Fans First” public consultation can be accessed here. The call for evidence can be accessed here.

See: UK Government Calls For Dynamic Pricing Review After Oasis OnSale

Comments:

Jon Collins, chief executive of LIVE, the UK’s live music trade body: “LIVE welcomes this positive step to put fans back at the heart of live music by tackling ticket touting. We have been a long-term and vociferous advocate for regulation of the secondary market, supporting the great work of the FanFair Alliance, and are pleased to see government delivering on its manifesto commitment in this area.

“We are delighted that measures which permit responsible and fair fan-to-fan resale, while eliminating third-party profiteering, will be brought forward. This will reduce the incentive for touts to squeeze fans out of the primary sale and highlights the need to set the cap on resales at or near the original price.

“We look forward to continuing to work with government to ensure fans can enjoy our world-class live music sector.”

Annabella Coldrick, chief executive, Music Managers Forum: “The MMF both directly and through the FanFair Alliance has been campaigning to tackle the issue of industrial scale ticket touting and put tickets back in the hands of the fans for many years. We are pleased that the Government is following up on its manifesto promise and we will be pushing for effective regulation to resolve this harmful practice once and for all.”

Adam Webb, campaign manager, FanFair Alliance: “These suggested measures are potentially game-changing. Other countries, notably Ireland, have demonstrated how legislation to prevent the resale of tickets for profit can massively curb the illegal and anti-consumer practices of online ticket touts and offshore resale platforms. The UK simply needs to follow their example.”

The UK government’s business secretary Jonathan Reynolds: “From sports tournaments to Taylor Swift – all too often big events have been dogged by consumers being taken advantage of by ticket touts.

“These unfair practices look to fleece people of their hard-earned income, which isn’t fair on fans, venues and artists.

“Fans enjoying themselves in the moment are what make concerts and live events the thrilling experiences that they are, which is why as part of our Plan for Change, we are putting them back in control.”

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy:

“The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports team live is something all of us enjoy and everyone deserves a fair shot at getting tickets – but for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.

“As part of our Plan for Change, we are taking action to strengthen consumer protections, stop fans getting ripped off and ensure money spent on tickets goes back into our incredible live events sector, instead of into the pockets of greedy touts.”

Musician and DJ Fatboy Slim:

“Great to see money being put back into fans pockets instead of resellers. Fully behind this effort to make sure more people can enjoy incredible arts and music events across the country without being ripped off. It is part of the change this government were elected to make.”

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