It’s official. Well, ish. The rules for ticket touts and resale sites are about to change. Massively.
We reported this week that there will be a ticket tout crack down. On 19 November, the UK Government officially announced plans to make it illegal for concert tickets to be resold for more than their original cost. Theatre, comedy, sport and other live events are also part of the ruling.
“Ticket touting has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years,” the Government statement read. “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.”
There’s a level of ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ when it comes to government legislature. But this is a big step in stopping a practice that estimates suggest could save fans around £112 million per year.
The move is part of a wider promise by the Government to create fairer systems that give “hard-working people the respect they deserve,” it said in its original statement. The measures have also been spurred on by artists such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender and more who urged PM Kier Starmer to keep his campaign to stop ticket touts from ripping off fans.
But what does it mean, and who will it affect? Here are five key takeaways from the groundbreaking new measures.
Touts are out
The key headline is that tickets sold above face value will be made illegal. Tickets can still be resold with ticket fees, such as service charges, attached to the value.
On the subject of service fees, resale platforms will not be able to increase those beyond its original value. This will be officially capped.
Who will it apply to?
According to the Government, “the new rules will apply to any platform reselling tickets to UK fans, including secondary ticketing platforms and social media websites.” This will include sites such as Viagogo and Stubhub, who have previously attempted to slow down regulatory efforts by claiming that price caps could push customers into more unregulated markets.
In its statement, the Government also said that “businesses who break the regulations could be subject to financial penalties of up to 10% of global turnover.”
Self-policing
While reselling sites won’t be outlawed, they will have some major new responsibilities to consider.
Resale platforms will be legally bound to monitor and enforce the price cap themselves. It works a little differently for ticket touts. Touts regularly use methods to acquire more tickets than is allocated for an individual buyer. Those people will now be banned from reselling more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the initial ticket sale.
What it means for you
While this landmark music for the live music and festival industry is a welcomed one, how will it affect those actually buying the tickets?
For one, it means that more tickets will be available to buy at face value on the day of release. But these new measures also suggest that resale tickets will be £37 cheaper on average.
But these measures are not only designed to save fans cash in the short-term. It’s a way to end the practice of touting as a whole.
