Ticketing
For Wu-Tang Clan superfans with money to burn, snagging a premium ticket for their upcoming tour won’t just buy killer seats, but gain them entry to an exclusive pre-party offering an immersive look at the kung-fu and iconography of the famed Staten Island hip-hop collective.
“We’re really being thoughtful from a pricing perspective,” Ben Duvdevani, co-founder of One More Time VIP, says of the Shaolin Temple Preshow Party ticket package, which offers entry to a time capsule-style exhibit showcasing rare Wu-Tang fan memorabilia and 3D video projections of classic films like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Five Deadly Venoms that inspired albums like Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever.
“Packaging premium seats with these programs is enticing for the fan and helps push inventory. It helps push the bots out of purchasing premium inventory” and, he adds, “helps conversion for VIP.”
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The Shaolin Temple package is just one example of the lucrative VIP concert business in 2025, which is poised for a comeback thanks to a new generation of fans looking to invest in artist-centric experiences.
“There’s a ton of business out there because there are so many artists on the road right now, and so many artists at all levels trying to create something memorable for their fans,” adds Duvdevani, whose company is handing VIP packages for about 300 tours this year including Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Teddy Swims and HAIM.
It’s an impressive feat for an industry hit hard by COVID-19. The VIP business was born in the 1990s thanks in part to the work of New Yorker Shelley Lazar — the beloved “Ticketing Queen” who convinced iconic artists like the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Who to let her build out premium offerings for diehard fans she came to know on a first name basis — and it continued to grow in the new millennium as touring exploded. By the early 2000s, most artists were offering fans some type of VIP product, from meet and greets to destination concerts, facilitated and produced by a new generation of VIP companies with names like Fresh Beats and CID.
Beginning in 2017, many of the VIP companies started to consolidate. Several of them came under the NFL-backed firm OnLocation, which was purchased in March 2020 by Endeavor — just weeks before the concert business shut down for more than a year during COVID-19. During the pandemic, one popular U.K. VIP and hospitality company, Pollen, was forced to file for bankruptcy and later dismissed most of their staff.
Many VIP executives used the pandemic period to leave Endeavor and begin serving out their non-competes. By 2022, a new crop of companies founded by these execs started popping up, including One More Time, which won the contract to build the Shaolin Temple Preshow Party for Wu-Tang Clan’s upcoming Final Chapter North American arena tour. “It’s a bespoke preshow activation, where there’s going to be some surprises and a really special experience for fans,” Duvdevani tells Billboard of the exhibit that was created for the group’s 27-city tour. The Shaolin Temple pre-party is being packaged with front section floor tickets and priced at $740 a piece all-in.
VIP conversion has become increasingly common as more artists embrace platinum ticket pricing and higher prices for front row seating inventory as a response to secondary ticketing prices. Coupling these high-end tickets with VIP add-ons has become an important way to move aggressively priced inventory.
That need has led to one major change in how VIP packages and fan clubs are operated. Prior to the pandemic, many VIP companies operated ticketing systems that pulled tickets off the Ticketmaster or AXS platform, a practice that has largely ended.
“We want to put our best foot forward to make sure everyone’s winning, so we’re not taking anything off platform,” Duvdevani says. “Promoters are still getting the sale, and we’re also being mindful of that inventory. We don’t want to hold up a sell-out.”
Eddie Meehan got his start running VIP access company A Wonderful Union in the early 2000s before eventually selling to OnLocation and subsequently launching Please & Thank You. Meehan said his new company’s clients include Backstreet Boys, Alice Cooper, Melissa Etheridge and Peso Pluma.
“You have to be creative because many artists simply aren’t interested in doing meet and greets, it’s very taxing,” says Meehan, noting that he’s found success creating activations for artists like Aimee Mann, who offered VIP package holders a preshow soundcheck performance with songs not performed during the concert. Fans of another Please & Thank You client, *NSYNC, were invited to a restaurant for a private dumpling making party.
“We’ve had a lot of success bringing in brands to underwrite some of these events, which means more money in the pocket of the artist,” says Meehan, who has struck deals with Amazon Music and eBay Motors. “I tell brands they won’t get the same exposure to 600,000 fans they would get on a tour, but they do get access to 3,000 diehard, loyal fans who will evangelize your brand.”
Duvdevani added that VIP offerings shouldn’t be limited to established artists, pointing to newcomer Jessica Baio, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter who hired One More Time to run a VIP meet and greet program for her first headliner club tour.
“I feel like such an important part of going and performing live is also getting to meet people face to face,” Baio tells Billboard. “It’s something I wanted to offer to people and it’s just one of my favorite parts of the night, getting to physically hug people and meet them in person and allow them to share why my songs have touched them.”
While young artists like Baio have found success with a meet and greet program scaled to fit their tours, VIP industry luminary Dan Berkowitz, who is widely recognized with having helped create the VIP business through his firm CID, which he sold in 2016, says artists should only offer VIP experiences to fans if those experiences promote an “authentic connection.”
If the artist is committed to making the experience work, says Berkowitz, who launched his new company, 100x Hospitality, in 2022, there’s always potential for success.
“There is always going to be a strong demand for compelling experiences and people are always going to want to feel connected to the music that they love and to each other,” he says.
Ticketing platform Seated is being re-acquired by its founders, David McKay and John Griffin, four years after it was acquired by intimate live experience producer Sofar Sounds. McKay will lead the company’s return to independence as CEO.
Seated — dubbed an artist-first ticketing platform — was launched in 2017 to empower artists to take more control of their ticketing by enhancing tour listings for artist websites; it has since evolved into a central pillar of many major tours’ marketing and ticketing efforts. The platform’s offerings have now expanded to include SMS-based presale registration, audience-building and pixeling for ad strategy, official waitlists for sold-out shows, and direct-to-fan ticketing. Seated has come to work with big-name artists including Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Olivia Rodrigo, Lizzo, Eric Church, John Mayer, Morgan Wallen, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Gracie Abrams in recent years.
“When we sold the company in February 2021, it was a very different time [for live events], and our vision of what a combined Seated and Sofar would become drastically changed once the vaccines came out. Our business was clearly moving in a different direction than Sofar,” says McKay. “To their credit, [Sofar] continued to support us and we stayed a fully independent operating team inside of Sofar for those four years, which actually made this a very clean split.”
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The two entities began discussing a split when former Sofar Sounds CEO Jim Lucchese departed the company in 2024 to become the president of Berklee College of Music. Lucchese was replaced by former Atlas Obscura CEO Warren Webster, who McKay says is a “breath of fresh air for Sofar” but diverges from Seated’s goals of working with arena and stadium touring artists.
“Seated has achieved remarkable growth under Sofar Sounds’ ownership these last four years, becoming a vital partner to some of the biggest artists in the world,” Webster said in a statement. “We’re proud to have been part of that story, and as Sofar focuses on the increasing demand in our communities for live experiences, we’re thrilled that Seated will continue to grow with its founders at the helm.”
For the founders, the reacquisition is about doubling down on building tools for artists to sell tickets directly and develop stronger connections with their fans. The platform has recently done direct-to-fan ticketing for Noah Kahan, Shawn Mendes and Goose, while artists like Brandi Carlile, John Legend and Nathaniel Rateliff have used Seated to sell their own presale tickets, giving them more control over the ticketing experience and fan data. Seated has also helped artists use identity verification for resale and waitlist ticketing, reducing the number of tickets that end up with brokers.
Over the past year, the biggest residencies at Sphere in Las Vegas — including Eagles, Dead & Company and Kenny Chesney — also used Seated for data capture, demand insights and SMS presale registrations.
With ticketing being a hot-button issue in the last few years, McKay says he is excited to be independent again so that Seated can focus more on helping artists capture their fan data. Rather than spending all of their tour marketing on directing fans to ticketing platforms where they have to wait for a specific time for an onsale, McKay wants artists to be able to give their fans actionable items that get them closer to securing tickets.
“When tickets are not on sale yet, fans can sign up for reminders to get tickets, and when tickets sell out, we open up the fan waitlist,” McKay says, and all that fan data goes back to the artist.
“All the ticketing companies that you know and love — or don’t — are built with the tools to service their customers, which are the venues,” McKay says, adding that major ticketing companies are investing in box office computers, scanners and season ticket technology for sports teams. “Ticketing companies as a whole, the artist isn’t their customer.”
After playing Fenway Park in Boston, Kahan was set to perform at a local Vermont venue with only 5,00 tickets available. Instead of making fans rush to an onsale (where bots are the quickest to the tickets), the company had fans sign up with their information and their price range, and Seated was able to sort through to make sure all buyers were authentic fans. If fans needed a refund, they could click a button to return the ticket, and it would go to another fan on the waitlist. Fans who did not want a refund for their ticket could donate the money they spent to Kahan’s charity, with McKay stating that 15% of those who wanted a refund did so.
“That’s the biggest difference between an artist-led ticketing platform and a venue-led ticketing platform,” says McKay.
Live Nation is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling last year that said the concert giant couldn’t enforce “opaque and unfair” arbitration agreements against ticketbuyers, warning the justices that the scathing ruling “creates massive uncertainty.”
The decision, issued in October by a lower court, said the contracts Live Nation had forced concertgoers to sign – requiring them to resolve disputes via private arbitration — were “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory” that they were “borderline unintelligible.”
But in a petition to the Supreme Court this week, Live Nation says that the decision must be reversed, warning it would have “far-reaching consequences” for how arbitration works and could potentially cause massive headaches for companies that have long relied on such agreements.
“If allowed to stand, the decision below will enable mass arbitration plaintiffs to continue their abusive strategy of racking up procedural costs to the point of forcing the defendant to capitulate to a settlement, rather than proving their allegations,” Live Nation’s lawyers write. “These highly disruptive consequences reinforce the need for review.”
The appeal to the Supreme Court comes in a class-action lawsuit accusing Live Nation of violating federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert tickets and engaging in “predatory” behavior. Filed in 2022 on behalf of “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of ticket buyers, the case claims Live Nation and Ticketmaster abused their dominance to charge “extraordinarily high” prices to consumers.
Faced with those allegations, Live Nation argued that fans had waived their right to sue in court when they bought their tickets because they had signed arbitration agreements — a common requirement when purchasing tickets and other services from many companies.
In rejecting that argument in October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Live Nation’s agreements were “unconscionable and unenforceable” since they would make it “impossible” for fans to fairly pursue claims against the company.
“Forced to accept terms that can be changed without notice, a plaintiff then must arbitrate under … opaque and unfair rules,” the appeals court wrote at the time. “The rules and the terms are so overly harsh or one-sided as to unequivocally represent a systematic effort to impose arbitration as an inferior forum.”
The ruling described Live Nation’s agreements in scathing terms, calling them “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible” and “poorly drafted and riddled with typos.” The terms were so confusing, the court said, that Live Nation’s own attorneys had “struggled to explain the rules” during a court hearing.
The criticism centered on Live Nation’s decision to alter its terms of use to require fans to submit to “novel and unusual” procedures for “mass arbitration.” That new process, offered by an upstart arbitration firm called New Era ADR, was aimed at handling many cases at once rather than individually, which Live Nation believed was necessitated by aggressive tactics from lawyers representing huge numbers of concertgoers.
But in rejecting that new process, the Ninth Circuit said Live Nation was essentially trying to have its cake and eat it too: “Defendants sought to gain in arbitration some of the advantages of class-wide litigation while suffering few of its disadvantages.”
In this week’s petition to the Supreme Court, it was Live Nation’s turn to level criticism – calling the Ninth Circuit’s ruling a “deeply flawed decision” that exemplified the kind of “judicial hostility” to private arbitration that’s prohibited under federal law.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision below flouts [federal arbitration law], defies this court’s precedents, and threatens to block sensible measures for addressing the new phenomenon of mass arbitration filings,” the company’s lawyers write.
The plaintiffs in the case will file a response in the weeks ahead, and the justices will decide whether to take the case at some point in the next few months. Reps for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have launched an official inquiry into the event ticketing business at the urging of President Donald Trump, the agencies announced Wednesday (May 7).
As part of the inquiry, “the agencies invite members of the public to submit comments and information on harmful practices and on potential regulation or legislation to protect consumers in the industry,” according to a press release. Anyone “impacted by anticompetitive practices in the live concert and entertainment industry” will have 60 days to submit comments to Regulations.gov, with the comment period concluding on July 7.
After the comment period closes, the agencies state they will “use the information in their preparation of the report and recommendations directed by President Trump” in his Executive Order 14254, also known as Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market. Signed by the president during a March 31 meeting in the Oval Office with musician Kid Rock in attendance, the order directed the Attorney General, along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the FTC, to submit a report identifying “recommendations for regulations or legislation necessary to protect consumers” in the industry, including by enforcing the Better Online Tickets Sales (BOTS) Act.
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Passed in 2016, the BOTS Act gives both the DOJ and the FTC broad power to crack down on scalpers who illegally use automated technology to skirt the restrictions placed on high-demand ticket sales and prevents scalpers from buying up the best seats to flip for profit. Yet since its passage in 2016, the BOTS Act has only been used once to prosecute scalpers who knowingly break the rules put in place to make ticket buying fairer and more equitable.
“Competitive live entertainment markets should deliver value to artists and fans alike,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division in a statement. “We will continue to closely examine this market and look for opportunities where vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws can lead to increased competition that makes tickets more affordable for fans while offering fairer compensation for artists.”
Added FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, “Many Americans feel like they are being priced out of live entertainment by scalpers, bots, and other unfair and deceptive practices. Now their voices are being heard. President Trump has sent a clear message that bad actors who exploit fans and distort the marketplace will not be tolerated. The FTC is proud to help deliver on that promise and restore fair and competitive markets that benefit ordinary Americans.”
The inquiry comes as several ticketing bills work their way through Congress, most notably the TICKET ACT, which passed the House of Representatives on April 29 and also includes language calling for the enforcement of BOTS Act.
“Illegal bot use runs rampant in the ticketing industry because the FTC has only brought one enforcement action since the use of bots was banned in 2016,” read a statement from Stephen Parker, executive director of National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), shortly after the April 29 passage of the TICKET ACT in the House. He added, “We hope Congress does not miss the opportunity to ensure these laws are actually enforced in the future.”
LONDON — Following the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion dates in the U.K. and Ireland this coming summer, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows.
In August 2024, the Gallagher brothers announced their reformation for 19 stadium shows, their first since their split in 2009. The tour will begin on July 4 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, before heading to North America, Asia, Latin America and Australia in the ensuing months
The ticket sale process drew huge demand, but some fans complained of unclear pricing for tickets after long waits for the opportunity to purchase passes. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation highlights that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
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The update adds that demand meant that cheaper tickets sold out first, but that the release of more expensive tickets for similar places in the stadiums meant that “many fans waited in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
More than 900,000 tickets were sold for Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, but the pricing strategy proved controversial when standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees ($174) were re-labelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees ($458).
Following the furore, Oasis issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial dates. The CMA launched an investigation in September to examine whether Ticketmaster had used “unfair commercial practices” to pressure fans into paying higher prices for tickets.
Ticketmaster denied the use of the so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ method, with the company’s U.K. director Andrew Parsons telling MPs in February, “We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way.” He added that all prices are determined by artist teams and promoters SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, all of which have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s owners.
The report acknowledges that since the opening of the investigation, “Ticketmaster has made changes to some aspects of its ticket sales process,” but that the CMA “does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” The report does not directly comment on the alleged ‘dynamic pricing’ model, but cites other concerns around clearer sale practises.
The CMA says that, “Following a formal investigation, the CMA is now consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
In a statement to Billboard U.K., Ticketmaster U.K. said, “We strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
Downing Street responded to the report (via the BBC) by repeating a quote given by culture, media and sport secretary Lisa Nandy following the news that the government announced plans to cap the value of resold tickets for live events like music. “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports teams live is something that all of us enjoy… But for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.
“We’ve also seen cases where a lack of transparency has meant customers have been caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.”
On Friday (March 21), secondary ticketing marketplace StubHub filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC that the company hopes will value it at $16.5 billion.
A pioneer in online ticket re-selling, StubHub had “gross merchandise sales” (GMS) — or the total price customers paid for the transaction and fulfillment — of $8.7 billion in 2024, a 27% increase from 2023. For the year, it sold more than 40 million tickets from more than 1 million unique sellers across 200 countries and territories.
Revenue reached $1.77 billion in 2024, up 29.4% from 2023, while net loss was $2.8 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), which strips out non-cash expenses, was $298.7 million, down nearly 16% from $353.9 million in 2023. Long-term debt stands at $2.33 billion — nearly eight times last year’s adjusted EBITDA.
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Proceeds from the IPO will primarily go toward StubHub’s debt, with the remainder going toward general corporate purposes such as working capital, operating expenses and capital expenses. StubHub said it may use a portion of the proceeds for acquisitions or investments in products or technologies.
StubHub believes it is the leader in secondary ticketing, according to its S-1 filing on Friday. The company has also made a foray into primary ticketing, which generated more than $100 million in GMS in 2024. “We believe our value proposition, providing broadened distribution and superior pricing intelligence through an open distribution model, is well-positioned to attract more content rights holders to use our direct issuance solution,” the company stated in the filing.
StubHub does more business than most of its competitors. Vivid Seats had gross transaction value (GTV) of $3.9 billion in 2024 while Eventbrite, a primary ticketing platform, had GTV of $3.2 billion last year. Ticketmaster, which does not break out its primary and secondary ticketing, had GTV of $34.7 billion.
Launched in 2000 by Erik Baker, StubHub was acquired by eBay in 2007. Baker then launched a competing secondary ticketing platform in Europe, Viagogo, which purchased StubHub in 2020. Ahead of the IPO, Baker owns approximately 5% of Class A shares and 100% of Class B shares, leaving him with more than 90% of the voting rights. Other major holders of Class A shares include Madrone Partners (27.1%), WestCap Management (11.0%), Bessemer Venture Partners (9.6%), PointState Capital (5.6%) and Declaration Partners (5.3%).
A busy year in high-margin amphitheaters and arenas pushed concert promoter Live Nation to a record $2.15 billion in adjusted operating income (AOI) in 2024, up 14%, on record revenue of $23.16 billion, up 2%.
In the concerts division, full-year revenue rose 2% to $19.02 billion. Despite having 30% fewer stadium shows in 2024, the total number of fans grew to a record 151 million from more than 50,000 Live Nation events. A heavy slate of concerts at arenas and amphitheaters, where Live Nation can offer VIP experiences and capture more revenue from food and beverage sales, helped AOI climb 65% to $529.7 million and AOI margin — AOI as a percentage of revenue — reach a record 2.8%.
Ticketing revenue for the full year increased 1% to $2.99 billion while AOI dropped 1% to $1.12 billion. Ticketmaster had 23 million net new enterprise tickets that were signed in 2024, with two-thirds coming from international markets.
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Sponsorships and advertising revenue grew 9% to $1.2 billion and AOI rose 13% to $763.8 million. Led by festivals in Latin America and Europe, international markets were up double digits. The number of new clients increased 20%.
Live Nation is expecting 2025 will top its record-setting 2024. Through mid-February, stadium shows are up 60% from the prior-year period and 65 million tickets have been sold for Live Nation concerts, a double-digit annual increase. Ticketmaster’s transacted ticketing revenue for 2025 shows is up 3% to 106 million tickets, due mainly to an increase in concert demand.
The current year “is shaping up to be even bigger thanks to a deep global concert pipeline, with more stadium shows on the books than ever before,” CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement. Currently, Live Nation’s stadium tours for 2025 include Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour, Morgan Wallen’s I’m The Problem Tour, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s Grand National Tour, and Post Malone and Jelly Roll’s Big Ass Stadium Tour.
Consolidation fourth-quarter revenue dropped 2% to $5.68 billion as concerts revenue dipped 6% to $4.58 billion and ticketing and sponsorships and advertising grew 14% and 10%, respectively. Fourth-quarter AOI fared better, however, rising 35% to $157.3 million despite concerts AOI falling 16%.
Live Nation is ending its “concerts all summer long” program at the company’s amphitheaters and plans to replace the multi-show offering with something different, company officials tell Billboard. On Tuesday (Feb. 18), the Live Nation Lawnie Instagram page announced the end of the six-year-old program, in which music fans paid a flat fee for a […]
A ticketing reform law meant to clean up the concert industry has been revived in the U.S. Senate after nearly becoming law at the end of last year.
Originally introduced by representative Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Florida), the Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act (TICKET Act) would introduce a number of reforms to the ticket-buying process. That includes rules to increase pricing transparency, which would require sports teams and concert promoters to clearly and prominently display the full price of a concert ticket, with fees and taxes added, so that the price they first see is the price they pay at checkout.
The TICKET Act died with the end of the 2023-2024 congressional term but has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate by senators Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Ed Markey (D- Massachusetts). It heads to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday (Feb. 5) for a hearing.
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The TICKET Act would also mandate refunds for canceled events, ban speculative ticket sales and crack down on the unauthorized use of venues, teams and artists on resell sites designed to confuse fans. Born out of the bungled Taylor Swift ticket sale for her record-breaking Eras Tour — which was crashed by scalpers and billions of bots trying to buy up tickets to flip for profit — the TICKET Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in December 2023 and passed the House in June of last year in a 344 to 24 vote. The bill was even included in the first iteration of the end-of-year Continuing Resolution spending bill signed by former president Joe Biden at the end of last year before eventually being pulled from it.
Whether or not the TICKET Act ends up on President Donald Trump’s desk, one of its key tenets — all-in pricing — was solidified in December by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it announced a rule change tackling “junk fees.” The so-called Junk Fees Rule — which also applies to hotel rooms and airline fees — requires total price disclosure including fees for any event tickets listed for sale on the internet.
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” former FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said on Dec. 17, hours after FTC commissioners announced the rule change.
The TICKET Act isn’t the only bill designed to create a more hospitable ticketing marketplace for consumers — though some have claimed that violators of existing laws aren’t being held to account. In September, the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) sent Khan a letter urging her to begin enforcing the 2016 BOTS Act, which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.” The Sept. 9 letter claimed NITO members had attended a ticket resale conference and “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act.”
In July, songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle wrote that the BOTS Act has only been enforced one time since its 2017 passage. He went on to argue that the government needs to focus on enforcing its existing laws before moving on to a new regime of legislation that will ultimately go “under-enforced.”
LONDON — The British government has launched a public consultation into the ticketing industry, including the heavily criticized use of dynamic pricing for popular tours, as part of wider efforts to stop music fans from “being fleeced” by “greedy ticket touts.”
The 12-week consultation was announced by the Department for Business and Trade and Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday (Jan. 10). It sets out a range of measures to transform the U.K.’s secondary ticket market, including a proposed cap on the price of ticket resales and new legal regulations for ticket platforms around transparency and the accuracy of information they provide to fans.
“From sports tournaments to Taylor Swift, all too often big events have been dogged by consumers being taken advantage of by ticket touts,” said business secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a statement. “These unfair practices look to fleece people of their hard-earned income, which isn’t fair on fans, venues and artists.”
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Government ministers are additionally reviewing pricing practices across the entire live events business, including the use of dynamic pricing by primary vendors whereby prices surge based on demand.
The use of dynamic pricing for concert tickets came to the fore in the U.K. in September when it was used on the U.K. and Ireland legs of Oasis’ Live ‘25 reunion tour, prompting hundreds of complaints from fans after tickets unexpectedly soared from around £150.00 ($200) for standard admission to £355.00 ($470) without prior warning.
The angry consumer backlash was accompanied by fierce condemnation from British politicians, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, who called the “vastly inflated” prices “depressing to see.”
Soon after, the U.K. competition regulator launched an investigation into Ticketmaster examining whether the Live Nation-owned company broke consumer protection laws and engaged in “unfair commercial practices” by failing to notify ticket buyers in advance about the price rises. Ticketmaster has consistently stated that ticket prices are set by the artist team and event organisers, not itself.
Starmer had previously vowed to cap resale prices on secondary ticketing platforms, such as Viagogo and StubHub, in the run up to July’s election win.
According to the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), around 1.9 million tickets were sold through secondary platforms to British consumers in 2019, accounting for between 5% and 6% of all tickets sold that year. Tickets sold on secondary sites are typically priced more than 50% higher than their face value, reports CMA, which estimated the U.K. secondary ticketing market to have been worth around £350 million ($430 million) a year pre-pandemic.
“For too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices,” said Nandy announcing the three-month-long consultation, which closes April 4.
The government said it was seeking views from live industry stakeholders and music fans on a number of proposed measures designed to make ticket resales fairer and more transparent.
They include capping the price of resale tickets at up to 30% above face value and banning resellers from listing more tickets than they can legally buy on the primary market. These measures would disincentivise industrial scale touting, said the government.
Ministers are also proposing to pass tougher regulations for ticket resale companies and issue tougher fines for offenders. At present, the maximum fine that can be issued by Trading Standards against companies that breach ticketing sale rules is £5,000 ($6,100). The consultation will investigate whether this cap should be increased.
The primary ticketing market is also under scrutiny with ministers calling for evidence on whether fans are protected from “unfair practices,” including the use of new technologies and dynamic pricing.
Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer protection organization Which?, said the government must use the consultation “to regulate the industry properly, ensure ticket resales don’t exploit fans and decide when the use of dynamic pricing is unfair and shouldn’t be allowed.”
As in other countries, the practice of dynamic pricing is commonly used in the U.K. by travel companies, taxis and hotels, but it has only been fleetingly used in the British touring market with Oasis’ comeback tour – which is being jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts – marking its most high-profile roll out for live music concerts in the United Kingdom and Ireland so far.
The British government’s probe of the ticketing business is the latest attempt by authorities to tackle the persistent issue of large-scale ticketing touting in the U.K.
In 2021, watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded its long-running investigation into secondary ticketing platforms by making a series of recommendations to government on how to fix the sector. Those recommendations were rejected by the then Conservative government, but now form the basis of the Labour Party’s proposals.
There has also been a number of investigations by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) into secondary sites, with a particular focus on Viagogo.
When reached for comment, a Viagogo spokesperson insisted the company will “continue to constructively engage with the Government and look forward to responding in full to the consultation and call for evidence on improving consumer protections in the ticketing market.”
Responding to the public consultation, a spokesperson for Ticketmaster U.K. said the company was “committed to making ticketing simple and transparent” and supported plans to introduce an industry-wide resale price cap.
“We also urge the government to crack down on bots and ban speculative ticket sales,” said the U.K. arm of Ticketmaster, which has capped resale prices to face value on its platform since 2018. StubHub did not respond to a request to comment.
Adam Webb from U.K. campaign group FanFair Alliance called the government’s proposed measures “potentially game-changing” and highlighted the success of other countries, including Ireland, in passing legislation that has effectively banned ticket scalping. “The U.K. simply needs to follow their example,” said Webb.