Thursday December 4th 2025
Photo by Nainoa Shizuru
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Music and sports fans will no longer be ripped off on the ticket resale market due to the UK Government’s new measures which will destroy the operating model of ticket touts.
These new measures make it illegal to resell tickets for concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events (not including football games) above their original cost.
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 nations live events industry.
Local MP Kirsty McNeil welcomed the announcement, saying that she is “proud of the Labour Government’s commitment to deliver fairness for fans and stop gig-goers being ripped off by touts.”
The new laws will stamp out ticket touting, improving access for fans when tickets originally go on sale and ending rip-off pricing on the resale market.
Government analysis suggests that these measures could result in 900,00 more tickets being bought directly from primary sellers each year, reducing the average ticket price paid by fans on the resale market by £37.
The new rules 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.
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