When Labour announced plans last November to cap ticket resale prices, many in the live music industry thought a campaign that had dragged on for nearly two decades was finally approaching a conclusion, writes Saskia Koopman.
The government pledged to make it illegal to resell tickets above face value, cap fees charged by resale platforms and stop sellers from listing more tickets than they were originally allowed to buy. Ministers estimated the measures could save fans £112m a year.
But almost seven months later, the legislation remains in draft form.
For those who have spent years lobbying ministers and competition authorities, the delay has prompted comparisons with previous governments.
“We thought we were on track to see legislation finally come to fruition that would fix a problem we’ve been working on for 20 years,” Stuart Galbraith, chief executive of concert promoter Kilimanjaro Live, said at SXSW London on Tuesday.
Galbraith has been involved in campaigning against ticket touting since 2006, and said the industry had repeatedly met ministers from successive Conservative governments, only to be told to solve the problem itself.
“Each time, certainly through the Tory tenancy period, we were really just ‘go away, sort yourselves out, regulate yourself’,” he said.
The industry’s response, he added, was that it could not regulate away businesses operating outside the traditional live entertainment ecosystem.
“We made a very strong case that we wouldn’t be able to sort ourselves out because of the external actors that would come in and parasitically feed off our industry and our clients.”
The government’s proposals, unveiled after public anger over the resale of Oasis reunion tickets, would represent the biggest overhaul of the secondary ticketing market in years.
But while Labour included a draft Ticket Tout Ban Bill in last month’s King’s Speech, the legislation was not formally introduced into Parliament, meaning further scrutiny and consultation before it can become law.
Two decades of lobbying efforts
The industry’s frustration stems partly from how long the debate has been running.
Galbraith said the shift began in the early 2000s as ticket reselling moved online. “In the early 2000s it moved,” he said. “It was the first time that you saw it move to a mass market, or a mass operation, and that was online with Ebay.”
What had once been a handful of traders outside venues quickly evolved into a global resale industry.
“It’s very, very obvious, and statistically proven, that these are just commercial sites,” he added. “You can literally see that 95 per cent of the market is held by 20 commercial power operators, most of whom aren’t even based in the UK.”
Campaigners say successive attempts to tackle the issue through existing consumer legislation have proved ineffective.
Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, added: “It was essentially putting the burden on very small teams to go down and hunt down those breaches and get those tickets removed”.
The Music Managers Forum helped establish Fanfair Alliance in 2016 alongside a group of artist managers, including representatives of Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and Mumford and Sons.
The campaign has since become one of the most persistent lobbying efforts in the UK music industry.
“I’m just so, so, so frustrated, honestly,” Coldrick said of the latest delay. “Ten years of campaigning, a manifesto commitment … we’ve done a full consultation.”
A fight that isn’t yet over
Few in Westminster openly defend industrial-scale ticket resale and Labour’s proposals were backed by artists, promoters, venues, consumer groups and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
The government’s consultation found support for a face-value resale cap, while ministers argued the measures could save consumers more than £100m annually.
Yet questions remain over how the legislation will be structured and what level of fees resale platforms will be allowed to charge.
Alex Sobel, Labour MP and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music, said disagreements within government had contributed to delays. “There are some issues around a lack of decision within government, or within Downing Street, and between Downing Street, DCMS, DBT and others,” he said.
Sobel argued that once those issues are resolved, the legislation could move quickly because it faces little political opposition. “This is uncontentious,” he said. “No party will vote against this.”
But his optimism is not shared by everyone involved in the campaign.
Indeed, just last week, Viagogo chief executive Eric Baker said his company had been “educating” ministers about the potential drawbacks of resale caps, while the company confirmed it had held five meetings with officials since November.
Viagogo argues that price caps risk pushing activity into unregulated markets and says reform should focus on the wider ticketing ecosystem rather than resale alone.
For campaigners, however, the bigger question is why a reform that appeared settled last autumn remains unfinished. “Government has now recognised that,” Galbraith said of the ticket-touting problem.
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