The Daily Populous Tuesday November 18th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by westondeboer

Reselling tickets for profit is to be outlawed under plans due to be announced this week, the Guardian has learned, as the government goes ahead with a long-awaited crackdown on touts and resale platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub.

Ministers had been considering allowing touts – and ordinary consumers – to sell on a ticket for up to 30% above the original face value, as part of a consultation process that ended earlier this year.

However, the Guardian understands that reselling a ticket at anything more than the price at which it was originally bought will be banned.

The decision, due to be announced on Wednesday, comes a week after dozens of world-renowned artists – including Radiohead, Dua Lipa and Coldplay – issued an open plea to Keir Starmer to make good on Labour’s general election manifesto pledge by stopping “pernicious” touts.

Under the plan, which could form part of next year’s King’s speech, anyone selling a ticket will not be allowed to charge more than they paid for it. Resale platforms will be allowed to charge fees on top of that price.

These extras will also be limited, to ensure that they can’t be inflated artificially to offset profits forfeited owing to the legislation. The scale of the ceiling on service fees is yet to be determined.

The ban will also govern social media sites, which resale platforms have claimed would offer unregulated and potentially fraudulent tickets if legislation squeezes online ticket exchanges out of the market.

Anyone reselling a ticket will also be prohibited from offering more tickets than they could have procured under limits set by the original box office company.

A licensing system for ticket resale companies, one of the options that the government review considered, will not be adopted. Resale platforms will be legally liable if sellers using their site do not comply with the law, which will be enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Acts including Ed Sheeran and the Pixies have repeatedly lashed out at touts exploiting their fans, while this year’s Oasis reunion tour attracted legions of professional ticket “traders”.

A Guardian investigation found hundreds of tickets being sold by professional “traders”, including three UK touts listing dozens of Oasis tickets for a combined £26,000.

Overseas businesses have also targeted the lucrative UK market for live events. One Cyprus-based business advertised 1,596 tickets through StubHub alone for the Oasis tour.

The consumer group Which? published further details on Thursday of exorbitant prices charged by touts on such platforms in locations such as Dubai, Singapore and the US.

Oasis tickets for Wembley Stadium shows were listed for £3,498.85 on StubHub and £4,442 on Viagogo, while a Coldplay ticket, also for Wembley, was £814.52 on StubHub. The most extreme example Which? found was a ticket for All Points East festival in London’s Victoria Park, headlined by Raye, listed for £114,666 on Viagogo.

Such markups have been estimated to cost consumers £145m a year by the telecoms company and the venue sponsor Virgin O2. In some cases, campaigners and investigations by the Guardian have suggested, sellers may not even have the tickets they claim to.

Instead, they have been accused of engaging in a practice known as “speculative selling”, where touts advertise tickets they don’t have, then bank the proceeds from a sale and hope to source a ticket more cheaply later on. This practice is fraudulent.

Secondary ticketing companies have lobbied fiercely against the proposals, which they claim would lead to an increased illicit market and more fraud.

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Some of the UK’s biggest touts planned their own political influence campaign at a secret meeting last year revealed in footage filmed by the Guardian.

1:01 Veteran UK ticket tout vows to 'fight government' if Labour ticketing reform passes – video

In practice, there are question marks about whether sites such as Viagogo and StubHub would continue to operate in the UK if they cannot benefit from taking a cut of the huge markups charged by touts.

Face-value ticket resale sites, such as Twickets and Ticketmaster’s internal exchange system, have sprung up in recent years to offer an alternative to for-profit resale platforms.

The Guardian has regularly exposed the business practices of the ticket resale industry, including how the UK’s most prolific touts have been able to make huge sums of money by hoovering up tickets at fans’ expense and then capitalising on increased demand for the same events.

Shares in US-listed StubHub Holdings dropped 10% after reports emerged on Monday of the ban.

StubHub Holdings is the parent company of Viagogo, while the UK StubHub brand is a separate business, after a split forced by the UK consumer watchdog when Viagogo and StubHub announced a merger in 2020.

A spokesperson for StubHub International said the planned cap would condemn fans to take risks to see their favourite live events.

“With a price cap on regulated marketplaces, ticket transactions will move to black markets,” they said.

A Viagogo spokesman said: “Evidence shows price caps have repeatedly failed fans, in countries like Ireland and Australia fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites.”

lateread9er on November 17th, 2025 at 19:38 UTC »

So no more ticket master?

Myrdraall on November 17th, 2025 at 19:30 UTC »

Platforms shitty practices and "dynamic pricing" is also such BS. Queue for 30 mins before a presale, arrive to "sold out" with hundreds of $50 tickets being resold for $500.

omfgeometry on November 17th, 2025 at 19:23 UTC »

Fuck scalpers