Music News

The U.K. government hopes to decrease the price of resale tickets by an average £37 per ticket ($48 USD), according to a new report released released Wednesday (Nov. 19) in which it outlined its plan to outlaw ticket resale above face value.

According to a memo outlining the new rules, “Music and sport fans will no longer be ripped off on the ticket resale market thanks to new measures which will destroy the operating model of ticket touts,” also known as scalpers. The memo, released by the country’s Department for Business and Trade and Department for Culture, Media and Sport, adds that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government will make it “illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost.” The news was first reported by multiple U.K. outlets on Monday (Nov. 17) prior to the memo’s release.

The new rules effectively make ticket resale above face value — defined as “the original ticket price plus unavoidable fees, including service charges” — illegal. The law limits the service fees that resale sites can charge and requires platforms like StubHub and Viagogo “to monitor and enforce compliance with the price cap.” The law also bans fans and resellers from buying more tickets than they are legally entitled to purchase during an initial ticket sale. 

The U.K. government’s website features supportive quotes from politicians, music managers and artists about the bill, including U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle, who said the legislation taking on scalpers was meant to “smash their model to pieces and make sure more fans can enjoy their favourite stars at a fair price.”  

In her own statement, U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy compared ticket scalpers to “a shadow industry, acting without consequence” while Dan Smith of the band Bastille described the legislation as “a good step towards protecting music fans from being ripped off.” 

The new rules apply to both ticket resale platforms and social media sites where fans buy and sell goods. Violating the new regulations, according to the government, could result in large financial penalties from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

“Government analysis suggests that these measures could save fans around £112 million annually [$146 million USD], with 900,000 more tickets bought directly from primary sellers each year,” the government’s website reads.

The law is meant to build on a development from September in which the Competition and Markets Authority secured commitments from Ticketmaster to give U.K. fans 24 hours’ notice if Ticketmaster plans to use tiered pricing and provide clearer information about how the company’s online queues work, among other measures.

“The CMA’s enforcement action in this case, and the measures agreed with Ticketmaster, send a clear message to all ticketing websites that fans must have access to clear and timely pricing information with accurate ticket descriptions, especially where there are different pricing models and queues in play,” the government’s website reads. “In the future, the CMA will be able to respond even more swiftly and robustly to breaches of consumer law.” 

The new legislation drew both praise and condemnation from different corners of the music industry. U.S.-based pro-ticket resale group the National Association of Ticket Brokers warned in a statement that it does “not support efforts to thwart competition. We discourage laws that impose price caps that make it more difficult for ticketing companies to compete with one another.” 

Others were more supportive, with Chris Lipscomb, managing girector for AXS U.K., telling Billboard in a statement, “We strongly support the UK government’s efforts to strengthen safeguards around ticket resale, which align with AXS’s longstanding practices in support of fair fan access.” 

Matt Kaplan, who heads up U.K. and EU operations for fan-to-fan exchange Tixel, said “the UK’s move to outlaw touting is a huge win for fans, artists and the wider industry, and we fully support this long-overdue reform. Tixel was built to tackle these exact problems, and after nearly a decade fighting for fair, transparent resale in multiple markets around the world, we’re proud to see a framework emerge that protects fans, restores trust and shuts out the bad actors.” 

In a statement to Billboard, Nathaniel Marro with the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) added, “We hope policymakers stateside are paying attention and that reining in predatory resellers is a global movement.” Also in a statement, Stephen Parker of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) called on “state lawmakers throughout the United States to follow the United Kingdom’s (UK) proposed ticket resale price cap.”