Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)]

The UK has a world-leading music and live events sector, which plays an important role in our national life and supports economic growth across the country. However, the Government are concerned that tickets for many live events have become inaccessible to fans due to highly inflated ticket prices on the resale market. In addition, new practices within the live events sector, such as dynamic pricing, are presenting challenges for fans when buying tickets, particularly around transparency.

We want to put fans first, ensure that they are treated fairly and, in so doing, support an economically successful live events sector.

To support these objectives, the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have published a consultation on the resale of live events tickets and a call for evidence on pricing practices in the live events sector, which are available on www.gov.uk.

Consultation on the resale of live events tickets

The Government recognise that a well-functioning ticket resale market can play an important role: helping to redistribute tickets between genuine fans; and allowing those who cannot attend an event to give an opportunity to others to get a ticket, while recouping some or all of their costs. However, it appears that professional ticket touts are systematically buying up tickets on the primary market and then reselling them to fans at often hugely inflated prices, with none of the profits going back to the performer, venue or the live events sector more generally. To address these issues, the Government are seeking views on a range of possible options, including:

Limits on ticket resale, such as via a price cap, making it illegal for tickets to be resold at more than a certain percentage above the original price, and fixed limits on the number of tickets that a seller can resell;

Increasing the accountability of secondary ticketing platforms by placing a duty on them to ensure that information provided by sellers is accurate;

Supporting the enforcement of existing consumer protection laws by updating provisions in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to make enforcement more efficient and effective, including a licensing regime focused on resale platforms; and

Encouraging industry-led actions to improve the transparency and accessibility of ticket sales, for example by phasing ticket distribution.

Call for evidence on pricing practices in the live events sector

The live events sector has adopted new approaches to selling tickets, including pricing strategies using new technologies. These practices are changing both how the system works and the experiences of fans when they purchase tickets. It is important that fans are treated fairly and openly with timely, transparent and accurate information being presented ahead of sales, particularly when demand is high.

The call for evidence is seeking views to determine if there is a case for future intervention, specifically examining:

How the ticketing market works in the UK, when and how tickets are sold using dynamic pricing, and other technologies used to sell tickets;

If and how consumers have been impaired by a lack of transparency, for example the transparency and timeliness of information provided to inform purchasing decisions, and the extent of hidden fees, tiered pricing or pressure selling; and

Whether the current legal framework provides sufficient protection, including whether gaps exist or if there is potential for new harms arising from emerging trends.

Next steps

The consultation and call for evidence will be open for 12 weeks. We encourage all interested stakeholders, including fans, ticketing platforms and the wider live events sector, to respond.

I am placing a copy of the consultation and the call for evidence in the Libraries of both Houses.

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