Artists including Dua Lipa, Sam Fender, PJ Harvey, Radiohead and Coldplay have signed an open letter calling on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “honour his pledge” to ramp up regulation of ticket touting, and to set out a clear timeline for introducing a ticket resale price cap.
Ahead of last year’s General Election, Starmer said that his government would pass a new law to cap how much touts can mark-up the price of tickets they resell on the secondary market.
The Labour Party manifesto then pledged to “put fans back at the heart of events by introducing new consumer protections on ticket resales”. Once in government, Labour ministers launched a consultation on ticket resale under the banner ‘Putting Fans First’, which ran from January to April this year.
All of that was welcomed by music industry and consumer rights groups who have been campaigning for stronger ticket touting regulations for years. But those campaigners have since become frustrated that the government is yet to formally respond to its consultation or set out a plan for making the price cap law.
The new open letter states, “These much needed, long overdue protections will help fix elements of the extortionate and pernicious secondary ticketing market that serve the interests of touts, whose exploitative practices are preventing genuine fans from accessing the music, theatre and sports they love”.
It goes on, “We urge the government to respond to its ‘Putting Fans First’ consultation as soon as possible, and commit to include legislation on a price cap in the next King’s Speech so fans can be reassured that they won’t have to wait years for new protections to come into effect”.
The next King's Speech, which sets out a government’s plans for taking new legislation through Parliament, is currently expected next spring. If new laws to introduce and enforce a ticket touting price cap aren't included in that speech, it’s feared it could be years before the new regulation comes into force.
Meanwhile, according to consumer rights group Which? - which has also signed the new open letter - the secondary ticketing market remains as problematic as ever. It says its most recent study of the market found evidence that speculative selling - where touts advertise tickets they are yet to secure - continues on both StubHub and Viagogo, despite both platforms insisting it’s against their own rules.
It’s also often difficult for buyers to establish who they are buying tickets from, despite the Competition & Markets Authority securing a court order in 2018 requiring Viagogo to outline the identity of traders. Sellers are routinely based aboard, with Which? identifying prolific touts based in Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, Spain and the US all selling tickets to UK shows.
And, of course, tickets for in-demand shows continue to be touted at massively marked up prices. Which? says, “Oasis tickets for Wembley Stadium shows were listed for £3498.85 on Stubhub and £4442 on Viagogo. A Coldplay ticket, also for Wembley Stadium, was £814.52 on Stubhub”. And, “a ticket for the All Points East festival in London’s Victoria Park, headlined by Raye, was listed for £114,666 on Viagogo”.
Lisa Webb from Which? says that today’s open letter “makes clear that artists, fan organisations and consumers reject the broken ticketing market that has allowed touts to thrive for too long. The Prime Minister pledged to protect fans and a price cap on resold tickets will be a critical step towards fixing this industry, but he must commit to this legislation by including it in the next King’s Speech”.
The music industry’s FanFair campaign has also endorsed the letter. Campaign Manager Adam Webb says that the “parasitical and frequently unlawful practices” of touts and the touting platforms they use “cost UK ticket buyers hundreds of millions of pounds each year”.
The “only pragmatic way to address this problem” he adds, “is through a cap on ticket resale prices - a measure that has been adopted successfully in a number of other countries, including Ireland and Australia”.