Music fans should be given more representation when government and lawmakers are setting policies that impact on music, according to a new report from Parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee. To that end the government and music industry should establish and fund a Music Fan Association, which would play a similar role to the Football Supporters’ Association within football.
Committee Chair Caroline Dinenage MP says, “For too long, the views of fans have been treated as background noise, despite those that attend gigs, concerts and festivals having an under-valued importance in the UK music scene and a unique insight, including on how to ensure its successful future”.
The new report is based on a study led by Kevin Brennan, which sought the input of thousands of music fans on the state of live and electronic music in the UK. It makes a stack of other recommendations for both the government and the music industry, including a demand that the government should get the promised new regulations of ticket touting into law “without delay”.
It also notes that “fans are concerned with the market dominance of large companies” in live music and ticketing, and that the “Competition And Markets Authority should monitor the position that big corporations hold in the UK’s live music industry, ensuring it is not detrimental to the fans”.
Which is a particularly timely recommendation given this week’s ruling in the US courts that Live Nation, the biggest of all the live music companies, is operating an unlawful monopoly.
Commenting on his study and the resulting report, Brennan says, “Over the last year we’ve given a voice to fans of all different music types and genres from across the country and they’ve told us loud and clear that often they feel neglected and ripped off. Sharp commercial practices and impersonal service are now all too prevalent in the music world and point to an industry that fails to treat its fans, the lifeblood of the sector, with respect”.
The recommendations in the report - presented as a ‘fan’s charter’ - “set out a practical and achievable way ahead”, Brennan adds, that he hopes venues, promoters, artists, managers, ticketing platforms and local councils will all sign up to “to help secure the long-term future of live music”.
The CMS Select Committee recommended that the government undertake a fan-led review of live music in its previous report on grassroots music venues. But when the government declined to take on the project, it asked Brennan - a former member of the committee and now member of the House Of Lords - to take on the project.
Although putting the spotlight on the fan experience, Brennan’s recommendations also touch on a number of issues that have been priorities for music industry groups for many years now. That includes the ‘agent of change’ principle, which ensures that developers building residential properties next to existing venues anticipate and mitigate future noise issues.
The principle was added to planning guidelines in England in 2018, but during the CMS Select committee’s grassroots music inquiry in 2024, MPs were told that those guidelines have been too open to interpretation at a local authority level, with trade group LIVE adding that the principle “needs more teeth”.
The new report says, “the UK government should embed the ‘agent of change’ principle in planning legislation in England. Following Scotland’s example, we would like to see the principle strengthened in law across the whole of the UK”.
And then there is the need to ramp up the regulation of ticket touting, which has long been called for by anti-touting campaigners in the music industry. The current Labour government promised to introduce tighter ticket resale rules ahead of the 2024 General Election and then last year announced it would introduce new laws basically prohibiting unofficial for-profit ticket touting in the UK.
But formal proposals for those new laws are yet to reach Parliament and campaigners are getting increasingly annoying with the slow progress being made. It’s still not clear if the new ticket touting rules will feature in the King’s Speech that will be delivered on 13 May, which sets out the government's legislative agenda and priorities for the year ahead.
The select committee’s new report says “the government should introduce legislation to ban the resale of tickets above face value without delay and ensure it is robustly enforced”.
Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum, which set up the FanFair Alliance campaign calling for better regulation of ticket touting nearly ten years ago, has welcomed the new fan-led report and especially its recommendation on secondary ticketing.
“Music fans are the lifeblood of our business and need to be cherished, respected and protected”, she says, adding “we are particularly pleased to see the committee's push for urgent action to tackle online ticket touts - we wholeheartedly agree that the anti-touting legislation promised in November 2025 must be included in the upcoming King's Speech”.