The Government has today revealed plans for a new law that will make it illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost as part of a crackdown on greedy touts.
As it stands, ticket touts can buy large volumes of tickets online – often using automated bots – and then relist them on resale platforms at hugely inflated prices to gig goers.
The UK Government says it will now bring forward a law which will improve access for genuine fans and could lead to fines for companies ripping fans off. The law has been fast tracked following a number of high-profile ticketing scandals, including the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launching an investigation into Ticketmaster over the sale of tickets for the recent high profile Oasis reunion.
The new legislation will introduce the following:
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
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.
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.”
