The UK government has announced plans for legislation to ban the resale of tickets to sports and entertainment above their original price.
In a statement on Wednesday (November 19), the government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the new law “will destroy the operating model of ticket touts,” using the British term for scalpers.
However, the legislation is also likely to damage the business of secondary ticketing platforms like StubHub and Viagogo. StubHub shares fell 14% on Monday, when news first spread of the government’s plans.
The law will make it illegal to sell tickets to concerts, sports, theater, comedy, and other live events above the tickets’ face value. Ticket resale platforms will have a duty to monitor and enforce the rule.
The legislation will also limit the service fees that resale platforms can charge, and individuals will be barred from selling more tickets than they were initially allowed to buy on the primary market.
That last rule is aimed at the now-common practice of using bots to buy up large volumes of tickets during an initial on-sale.
The government says its analysis estimates that the new rules will save UK fans around GBP £112 million (USD $147 million) annually, increase the number of tickets sold on the primary market by around 900,000, and reduce the average price of a ticket, inclusive of fees, by around £37 ($48.50).
“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,” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said in a statement.
“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.”
“Our new proposals will shut down the touts’ racket and make world-class music, comedy, theatre and sport affordable for everyone.”
UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy
Ticket resale platforms are warning that the law will drive ticket resales underground, potentially creating more problems for consumers than it solves.
“With a price cap on regulated marketplaces, ticket transactions will move to black markets,” said a spokesperson for StubHub International, which is a separate business from StubHub in the US, as quoted by the Financial Times.
“When a regulated market becomes a black market, only bad things happen for consumers.”
Not all secondary ticketing platforms agree. Tixel, which bills itself as an “honest” resale platform that caps prices on resale tickets, has come out in support of the legislation.
“The fear mongering around fair resale policies fueling fraud is just that – fear mongering. Price caps do not create fraud. Poor enforcement and unregulated marketplaces do,” a Tixel spokesperson told MBW in an email.
Banning touts was a part of the ruling Labour Party’s platform in the 2024 election. Earlier this month, a group of artists including Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Radiohead and Sam Fender sent a letter to the prime minister, urging him to make good on the promise.
“Introducing a cap will restore faith in the ticketing system, help democratize public access to the arts in line with the Government’s agenda and make it easier for fans to spot illegal behavior, such as ticketing fraud,” the letter stated.
“When a regulated market becomes a black market, only bad things happen for consumers.”
StubHub International
According to Let’s Stamp It Tout, an anti-scalping campaign launched by Virgin Media O2, touts are costing eventgoers an additional £145 million ($190 million) per year. About one in five event tickets sold in the UK ends up on a resale platform.
The Labour government’s planned legislation comes in the wake of a controversy surrounding the on-sale last year of tickets for Oasis’ reunion tour, in which UK fans complained of unexpected spikes in ticket prices on Tickemaster’s platform.
The spikes were initially attributed in the media to dynamic pricing, in which prices change in real time depending on the level of demand. However, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded in September that Ticketmaster didn’t use dynamic pricing for the on-sale – but nor did it notify buyers that it was using tiered pricing, under which ticket prices rise after a certain amount has been sold.
Ticketmaster agreed to a commitment to change its sales practices so that consumers have at least 24 hours’ notice that a ticket on-sale will involve tiered pricing.
The UK government’s announcement on the new ticketing rules did not address the issue of dynamic or tiered pricing, but the government issued a call for evidence on the issue earlier this year.Music Business Worldwide
