New rules to make it illegal to resell tickets for live events above original cost
Music and sport fans will no longer be ripped off on the ticket resale market thanks to new measures which will destroy the operating model of ticket touts.
The Government has today (19th November) announced plans to make it illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost.
Ticket touting has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. Touts buy large volumes of tickets online, often using automated bots, before relisting them on resale platforms at hugely inflated prices. This has caused misery for millions of fans and damaged the live events industry.
The proposals will stamp out this practice, improving access for genuine fans when tickets originally go on sale and ending rip-off pricing on the resale market. This is all part of the government's plan for national renewal by creating fairer systems and giving hard-working people the respect they deserve. This is all part of the government's plan for national renewal by creating fairer systems and giving hard-working people the respect they deserve.
The new rules announced today make clear that:
- Ticket resale above face value will be illegal - this will be defined in legislation as the original ticket price plus unavoidable fees, including service charges
- Service fees charged by resale platforms will be capped to prevent the price limit being undermined
- Resale platforms will have a legal duty to monitor and enforce compliance with the price cap
- Individuals will be banned from reselling more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the initial ticket sale
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said:
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.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle said:
The UK is home to a brilliant range of music, entertainers and sporting stars - but when fans are shut out - it only benefits the touts. That's why we're taking these bold measures to smash their model to pieces and make sure more fans can enjoy their favourite stars at a fair price.
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), under new powers introduced the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024.
According to analysis by the CMA, typical mark-ups on secondary market tickets exceed 50%, whilst investigations by Trading Standards has uncovered evidence of tickets being resold for up to six times their original cost.
Government analysis suggests that 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.
Today's announcement comes ahead of the Autumn Budget, which will focus on cutting NHS waiting lists, cutting the national debt and cutting the cost of living, and driving more productive and efficient use of taxpayers' money by rooting out waste in public services.
The use of pricing strategies like dynamic pricing has been another major source of frustration for concert goers, and the government undertook a call for evidence to explore the issue earlier this year. Today the Government welcomes the commitment from the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) who are convening the sector to establish best practice, including on price transparency.
This will build on the recent announcement by the CMA, who in September secured commitments from Ticketmaster to improve pricing information, following the Oasis ticket sale. This includes giving fans 24 hours' notice of tiered pricing, providing clearer price information during online queues, and ending misleading ticket labels - addressing the key issues that aggrieved fans during the Oasis sale.
The CMA's enforcement action in this case, and the measures agreed with Ticketmaster, send a clear message to all ticketing websites that fans must have access to clear and timely pricing information with accurate ticket descriptions, especially where there are different pricing models and queues in play. In future, the CMA will be able to respond even more swiftly and robustly (including imposing fines of up to 10% of global turnover) to breaches of consumer law, following the introduction of its new enforcement powers under Part 3 of the DMCC Act.
