Stars push government to cap soaring resale prices after fans hit impossible ticket costs
Some of the worlds biggest music stars are demanding urgent action from the government after months of inaction on a promised crackdown on online ticket touts. Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, Radiohead and The Cure are among more than forty artists who signed a letter calling on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to keep his pledge to protect fans from extreme mark ups on resale sites.
The letter urges the government to stop touts from fleecing fans and to introduce a legally binding limit on the prices that can be charged when tickets are resold. The plea follows long standing anger among music lovers who say they are regularly priced out of concerts within minutes of tickets going on sale.
The government launched a consultation in January aimed at dealing with touts who buy up huge numbers of tickets on the primary market and then resell them for enormous profits. Ministers promised firm action and said they were looking at price caps to fix a market many fans see as completely broken. However seven months after the consultation ended the government has still not revealed when legislation will be brought forward, leaving fans and performers frustrated by the delay.
Embed from Getty Images
Evidence from Which magazine shows the size of the problem. Tickets for the Oasis reunion concerts at Wembley Stadium this summer were being listed for as much as four thousand four hundred and forty two pounds each. Analysis by the Competition and Market Authority shows that resale tickets are routinely marked up by more than fifty per cent. Earlier in the year ministers suggested a cap of around thirty per cent could be introduced.
Dan Smith from Bastille said it seems crazy that fans in the United Kingdom have almost no protection from this kind of price gouging when countries such as Ireland and Australia already have caps in place. He argued that the widespread support for the idea across the music world reflects a shared desire to stop fans being ripped off. With government support he said the industry could move towards a fairer system where genuine fans can resell unwanted tickets only for the original price.
A spokesperson for the Department for Culture insisted the government remains committed to giving fans a fair deal. They said ministers have reviewed all the evidence from the consultation and will announce their plans soon. The consultation also looked at limiting the number of tickets that individual resellers can offer.
In their letter the artists urged the government to respond as soon as possible and to include legislation for a price cap in the next Kings Speech. Artists such as PJ Harvey, Mark Knopfler, Amy MacDonald, Iron Maiden and Nick Cave joined fan groups and consumer organisations to argue that reform would help restore faith in the ticketing system and improve access to live performance.
Coldplay who played a record breaking ten nights at Wembley this summer saw countless fans paying far above face value to attend. Which found that sellers in countries such as Brazil Dubai Singapore Spain and the United States frequently snap up large batches of tickets for British and American events before relisting them on sites like StubHub and Viagogo. The findings match a BBC investigation earlier in the year which uncovered organised teams of overseas workers bulk buying tickets for British gigs for resale at inflated prices.
The watchdog also reported that fans often struggle to identify who they are buying from even though Viagogo was ordered in 2018 to reveal trader identities. Which also found evidence of speculative selling where people list tickets despite not actually owning them.
Consumer law expert Lisa Webb said the powerful joint statement shows that artists fan groups and consumers all reject the broken ticketing market that has allowed touts to thrive for far too long.
Resale platforms including Viagogo and StubHub argue that a price cap might push buyers towards unregulated spaces and social media where fraud risks are higher. In football where resales are banned, the BBC recently discovered a black market with match tickets selling for tens of thousands of pounds.
The artists say the time for excuses has passed and want firm action to protect fans who simply want to enjoy live music without being priced out.