Ticket Sales: Dynamic Pricing

Debate between Baroness Twycross and Lord Moynihan

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, in the light of the selling of Oasis concert tickets, what action they plan to take against (1) dynamic pricing, and (2) other ticket sale practices.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

This Government are concerned to see fans prevented from going to live events by vastly inflated prices. We will launch a consultation in the autumn on options for introducing new protections for fans buying tickets. We welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s announcement that it has launched a formal investigation into Ticketmaster. As it is a live investigation it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the specifics of that case, but I declare an interest as one of many people who spent a ridiculous number of hours in the queue, only to have the site crash when I got to the ticket selection page, and subsequently to be told I looked like a bot.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I warmly thank the Minister for her reply. She is right that we are not in a position to reflect on the details of the review that is under way on dynamic pricing, but the second part of my Question is a request to investigate how tens of thousands of tickets end up being harvested illegally through bots and sold on sites such as viagogo and StubHub within seconds of officially going on sale, as evidenced in the conviction of Hunter and Smith, who are the tip of the iceberg of thousands of similar touts. They were found guilty of making millions fraudulently and dishonestly by buying and reselling tickets for high-profile music and entertainment events. Is the time to act not now? We have had nearly 10 years of extensive review since Waterson reviewed. Will the Minister come forward with legislation as soon as possible to protect genuine music fans from the criminal activities of modern-day ticket touts?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We committed to taking action on secondary ticket sales during the election, and we are consulting in the autumn on the best ways to implement our manifesto commitment to introduce new protections for fans in the ticket market. This will include proposals to protect fans on ticket resale and a call for evidence on price transparency that will include dynamic pricing.