Last week, popular British artists including Dua Lipa, Radiohead and Coldplay publicly pressured Labour to follow through on its earlier proposals and 2024 party manifesto.
The UK government will ban the resale of live music and event tickets for above face value.
Ticket touts and individuals will not be allowed to resell tickets at a profit, the government will announce later this week, according to a new report from the Guardian. The Labour government is set to follow through and surpass its 2024 party manifesto and proposal, which initially sought to cap resale prices at up to 30% the original ticket value, later dropping the profit cap to 10%.
The Guardian reports ticket reselling outside of secondary ticket platforms, such as on social media, will fall under this profit ban. Resellers will have to align with ticket quantity purchase limits in line with the original point of sale. Ticket resale platforms will be allowed to charge service fees, though limitations are expected, yet currently unclear. The Competition and Markets Authority will oversee and enforce regulation of these new legal boundaries.
The move follows pressure from popular British artists like Dua Lipa, Radiohead, Coldplay who urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to progress on the party pledge against “extortionate and pernicious” ticket resellers, with a focus on websites like StubHub and ViaGoGo.
An October 2024 study by YouGov and O2 found ticket touts cost live music fans more than £145 million a year on concert tickets, with about 1-in-5 tickets ending up on ticket resale websites.
