It will soon be illegal for anyone to resell tickets to live events for a profit, with a bill cracking down on ticket touts and resale sites reportedly set to be announced by the government tomorrow (November 19).
Under the new bill, it would be forbidden to list tickets for events, from music concerts to theatre to live sport, for higher than face value. This would target platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub, which are used for fans to purchase tickets to events after they have sold out on general sale.
It comes soon after a group of artists – including Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Radiohead, Robert Smith of The Cure, Sam Fender, PJ Harvey, New Order, and more – and other groups such as the Football Supporters’ Association issued an open call to Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make good on the pledge made by Labour in the run up to the 2024 general election, which vowed to cap resale prices for music & sport events.
According to The Guardian, ministers had initially considered capping the resale amount to allow the selling on at up to 30% above face value after a consultation process this year, but now the paper reportedly understands that it will be illegal to sell at any price more than the original price.
Resale platforms will reportedly still be allowed to charge booking fees on top of the face value prices, but there is no word yet on a cap on how much can be charged in these scenarios.
The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) have suggested that the bill could save fans a collective £112 million in ticket prices per year, and would make resale tickets around £37 cheaper on average.
In a statement, the DCMS said: “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 new laws 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.”
There have been concerns raised with the bill by resale sites, which largely point to the fear of fans turning to unregulated spaces to find resale tickets.
A spokesperson for StubHub said: “With a price cap on regulated marketplaces, ticket transactions will move to black markets,” with another for Viagogo saying: “Evidence shows price caps have repeatedly failed fans, in countries like Ireland and Australia fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites.”
As part of the bill, it has been reported in The Guardian thatsocial media sites will also be governed when it comes to selling tickets for events as a means to control. However, it has not been detailed just how this process would take place, though we may learn more when the bill is formally announced, which is set to happen tomorrow.
LiveNation, which is the parent company of Ticketmaster, has also already responded to the news, saying it “fully supports the UK government’s plan to ban ticket resale above face value.
They continued by saying: “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.”
This is a developing story, with the full bill due to be announced in due course.