- Stephen Morgan MP welcomes new rules to make it illegal to resell tickets for live events above original cost – delivering on manifesto promise
- Resale tickets to be £37 cheaper on average, saving fans collectively £112 million per year
- Measures will end business model of industrial-scale ticket touting Music and sport fans will no longer be ripped off on the ticket resale market thanks to new measures which will destroy the operating model of ticket touts
Local MP Stephen Morgan has welcomed the announcement from the Labour Government today on plans to make it illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost. The pledge delivers on Labour’s manifesto promise to stand up for consumers.
Ticket touting has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. Touts buy large volumes of tickets online, often using automated bots, before relisting them on resale platforms at hugely inflated prices. This has caused misery for millions of fans and damaged the live events industry.
The new laws will stamp out this practice, improving access for genuine fans when tickets originally go on sale and ending rip-off pricing on the resale market. The new rules announced today make clear that:
- Ticket resale above face value will be illegal – this will be defined in legislation as the original ticket price plus unavoidable fees, including service charges
- Service fees charged by resale platforms will be capped to prevent the price limit being undermined
- Resale platforms will have a legal duty to monitor and enforce compliance with the price cap
- Individuals will be banned from reselling more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the initial ticket sale.
In its election manifesto, Labour promised to put fans back at the heart of events by introducing new consumer protections on ticket resales – a promise the government is delivering on today. In contrast, the Conservatives failed to stand up for gig goers, football fans, and theatre followers during their 14 years in office – leaving culture lovers feeling ripped off.
Commenting, Stephen Morgan MP for Portsmouth South said:
“Whilst Portsmouth has long been home to fantastic live event venues, local people have previously found themselves missing out on unforgettable experiences due to ticket touting.
“Fans across Britain have been subverted by bots snapping up batches of tickets and reselling them thousands of times, become a shadow industry that operates without consequence.
“With this Government’s Portsmouth’s announcement, fans will finally be protected. New measures will shut down the touts’ racket and make world class music, comedy, theatre and sport affordable for all in our city.”
The new rules will apply to any platform reselling tickets to UK fans, including secondary ticketing platforms and social media websites.
Businesses who break the regulations could be subject to financial penalties of up to 10% of global turnover from the Competition and Markets (CMA), under new powers introduced the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024.
