The Government is poised to prohibit the resale of tickets for live events for profit. Officials are anticipated to unveil a strategy aimed at combating scalpers and secondary ticketing platforms that sell tickets at significantly inflated prices.
The Labour manifesto had pledged to introduce stronger safeguards to prevent consumers from falling victim to scams or being priced out of events by scalpers who use automated bots to purchase tickets in bulk as soon as they are released, only to resell them at exorbitant markups on secondary ticketing websites.
A consultation on the proposed changes had sought opinions on limiting resale prices to a maximum of 30% above the original ticket face value. However, reports from the Guardian and Financial Times indicated that ministers were likely to set the cap at the face value itself, while allowing additional fees to be charged on top of that amount.
The Government refrained from commenting on these reports. The potential announcement, expected to come on Wednesday, comes in response to a concerted effort by prominent music figures to reduce costs for fans. Coldplay, Dua Lipa, and Radiohead were among the artists who recently urged the Government to fulfill its promise of capping resale prices.
Musicians such as Robert Smith of The Cure, New Order, Mark Knopfler, Iron Maiden, PJ Harvey, and Sam Fender, the recipient of the Mercury Prize, joined forces in calling for a cap to “reestablish trust in the ticketing system” and “facilitate broader public access to the arts.”
Various stakeholders, including watchdog Which?, FanFair Alliance, O2, the Football Supporters’ Association, as well as organizations representing the music and theater sectors, venues, management, and ticket sellers, also lent their support to the cause. Rocio Concha, the director of policy and advocacy at Which?, lauded the move, emphasizing that it would curb exploitation by professional scalpers and ensure that tickets are made available to genuine fans at fair prices.
Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, expressed its endorsement of the Government’s initiative. The company highlighted its existing policy of limiting ticket resale in the UK to face value prices and hailed the impending ban as a significant step in protecting fans and maintaining accessibility to live events. They encouraged similar fan-friendly policies worldwide.
However, resale platform StubHub cautioned that the ban could inadvertently fuel the underground ticket market. A spokesperson for StubHub International warned that imposing a price cap on legitimate platforms might drive ticket transactions towards illicit markets, potentially exposing fans to risks and offering them limited recourse in case of fraud or other issues.
A spokesperson for Viagogo cited instances from other countries like Ireland and Australia where price caps had reportedly led to increased fraud rates compared to the UK, as consumers were pushed towards unregulated ticketing websites.