The UK government has revealed a plan to crack down on concert ticket prices, including via pricing caps for resale passes. Photo Credit: Vienna Reyes
The UK government has officially announced a “plan to tackle greedy ticket touts” – including by introducing resale-pass price caps and more.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport as well as others revealed that initiative, one component of the government’s wider Plan for Change, via a formal release today. Of course, given 2024’s particularly well-documented ticket-price complaints, the development doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.
To be sure, the release pertaining to the ticket-tout clampdown rather directly mentions the expensive cost of attendance for Taylor Swift gigs as well as Oasis’ comeback tour. (Last year, related ticketing fallout unfolded across the pond for Oasis, which opted against using Ticketmaster’s Dynamic Pricing for its North American leg.)
Returning to the actual effort to rout ticket touts in the UK, the undertaking is kicking off with a “public consultation” exploring “a range of options to make ticket resales fairer,” per the announcement.
Chief among those options is the initially highlighted resale-price cap, with an eye on “seeking views on a range from the original price to up to a 30 per cent uplift” as part of the public consultation. Also on the table are limits targeting the number of primary passes “ticket resellers” can purchase and then list.
“These measures would prevent organised touts reselling a large number of tickets at vastly inflated prices and disincentivise industrial scale touting,” the UK government claimed.
Of course, secondhand tickets can only sell for “vastly inflated prices” when buyers are willing to cough up massive sums. With commercially prominent acts’ millions upon millions of fans, demand can quite easily outstrip supply and send pricing into the stratosphere.
Following the idea to its logical conclusion, it’s unclear whether capping prices on ticket-resale platforms would ultimately benefit consumers, who could, at least in theory, simply arrange for supplemental off-platform payments to score especially hot passes.
In any event, the plan seemingly reflects consumers’ continued frustration with climbing concert-ticket prices. Expectedly, the same plan is poised to deliver “new legal obligations” for ticket-resale platforms concerning “the accuracy of information they provide to fans.”
In the cards as well is a review of existing legislation to bring consumer enforcement “up to date,” per the government. A “new licensing regime” for resale platforms and a possible increase to the current $6,111/£5,000 top-end fine for ticketing-rule breaches could be forthcoming to boot, according to the announcement.
As 2025 ramps up, it’ll be worth following the ticket-tout crackdown and the pricing impact thereof. Notably, while consumers are evidently still willing to shell out to see their favorite artists on tour, multiple festivals are struggling with sluggish demand and adjacent operational woes.