FanFair Alliance has ramped up calls for a price cap on resale tickets after accusing secondary ticketing site Viagogo of “misleading and potentially unlawful practices”.

The UK-based campaign group against industrial-scale ticket touting says it has collated a number of potential offences by Viagogo since the government launched its consultation into the resale market back in January.

It alleges the company has engaged in multiple cases of speculative selling and broken the UK Consumer Rights Act by permitting professional touts to list tickets with non-existent seat numbers and incorrect face values, as well as drip pricing and other misleading practices.

“To continue promoting such exploitative and unlawful practices during the consultation period really takes the biscuit,” says FanFair Alliance’s campaign manager Adam Webb. “It reiterates why we urgently need a price cap to stop this ongoing exploitation of fans, and to allow a fair and consumer-friendly model of ticket resale to flourish.”

Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on ticket abuse, describes the findings as “outrageous but completely unsurprising”.

“I will continue to work with FanFair Alliance and the government to end this blatant black market once and for all,” she says.

In a statement to IQ, a spokesperson for Viagogo says: “Viagogo takes its obligations under the law seriously and is fully compliant in the UK and with the CMA order.

“Our policies prohibit speculative listings. Any alleged speculative listing that we identify as being speculative is removed from our platform in line with our policy. Sellers found to be in breach of our policy will be dealt with including permanent suspension from using our platform.

“We remain committed to operating a safe, transparent, and lawful marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets.”

“Eliminating the incentive to harvest tickets is the right thing to do”

The UK live music industry came out strongly in favour of a price cap on resale tickets ahead of the government’s consultation deadline at the start of this month. The FanFair Alliance has advocated for a cap of no more than 10% over face value, while bolstering existing legislation to prevent speculative ticketing and fraud, alongside a dedicated approach to enforcement.

LIVE CEO Jon Collins says the latest examples flagged up by the organisation reinforce “the pressing need for swift government action”.

“Eliminating the incentive to harvest tickets is the right thing to do, will reduce distress caused to fans and open up new economic activity,” he says.

Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum (MMF), whose members who established the FanFair campaign in 2016, adds that a price cap on ticket resale is “the only way to end these abuses”.

Last week, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint by the FanFair Alliance, which challenged the claim made in a podcast advert that “over half the events listed on Viagogo had tickets selling below face value”.

“We considered that the claim, as it would be understood by consumers, had not been substantiated and was therefore misleading,” concluded the ASA.

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Scour the resale market for Oasis Live ’25 tickets and the chances are you’ll find listings for all 40-plus dates, with two honourable exceptions. Conspicuous by their absence on secondary channels are the Gallagher brothers’ reunion shows at Dublin’s Croke Park on 16th and 17th August. So what’s the story?

“The thing with Ireland is that the legislation is actually really clear,” says Adam Webb, campaign manager for UK-based anti-touting campaign group FanFair Alliance. “So, it doesn’t talk about price caps or face value or any complications, it basically says you can’t resell for profit.”

Introduced in the Emerald Isle in 2021, the Sale of Tickets (Cultural, Entertainment, Recreational and Sporting Events) Act prohibits “the sale, or advertising for resale, of tickets for a price exceeding the original sale price for designated events.” Its application is limited to events that “give rise to significant demand” or where it would otherwise be “in the public interest” to ban resale at a price above face value.

Enforcement is a matter for the Garda Síochána (Irish police service). While there have been no reported prosecutions up to this point, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment tells IQ the act has been “very successful.”

“Staff monitor Irish secondary resale platforms on a regular basis,” says a spokesperson for the government department. “Irish secondary resellers of tickets are aware of the legislation, and tickets for events that fall within the scope of the act are no longer offered for sale on these platforms. Promoters and organisers of events that are happening in non-designated venues have been proactive in applying to get their events designated.”

“Overall fraud in Ireland dropped by 25% in the first year of this legislation coming in”

Veteran ticketing and security expert Reg Walker of Iridium Consultancy estimates the act has killed off “95–97%” of ticket touting in the country. But its impact doesn’t end there.

“More interestingly is that, as a direct result, overall fraud in Ireland dropped by 25% in the first year of this legislation coming in,” he notes. “It’s almost eradicated ticket fraud in Ireland.”

A security crackdown – Operation Podium – was successfully carried out in the UK by the Metropolitan Police for the London 2012 Olympic Games, in line with requirements for host cities. Fines for those convicted of touting quadrupled from £5,000 to £20,000.

“There was very clear legislation put in place in respect of the resale of Olympics tickets,” says Walker. “Effectively, it was banned unless you had written authority from either a National Olympic Committee or the International Olympic Committee. But the key part of the legislation was it was supranational, i.e. it was an offence anywhere in the world. So, if you were a UK town and were selling through a website in Argentina, as someone tried to, it was still an offence.

“With the Olympics, the key was simple legislation, outright ban, supranational legislation. The most important fourth spoke in that wheel was enforcement.”

“Here’s the problem – the legislation is summary only, and it stops at the White Cliffs of Dover”

The resale of football tickets without authority in the UK has also been illegal since the 1980s, although Walker points out there is a loophole in that particular law.

“Here’s the problem – the legislation is summary only, and it stops at the White Cliffs of Dover,” he says. “So what you’ve had for years is a number of tout resale sites sitting over in Spain, Cyprus, etc, that harvest tickets in bulk for Premier League football matches, bounce them off these god-awful websites overseas, and it’s actually technically not illegal.”

Industrial-scale online touting has been a scourge for the live music industry in the digital age. Labour MP Sharon Hodgson tabled a private members’ bill in the UK as long ago as 2010, calling for a 10% cap on resale, which failed to get through parliament.

Ed Sheeran’s team went beyond the call of duty in cancelling around 10,000 tickets for the singer’s summer 2018 gigs after Viagogo refused a request from Sheeran’s team not to list the tickets for resale, while Oasis tour promoters Live Nation and SJM have vowed to void up to 50,000 tickets listed on unofficial resale sites for the band’s upcoming tour leg.

The battle has been given renewed impetus amid Labour’s landslide UK general election victory last summer, with prime minister Keir Starmer having pledged to introduce new legislation to cap ticket resale in the party’s manifesto.

“There is no point bringing forward new laws if we cannot enforce them”

Culture minister Chris Bryant also vowed that “change is coming” on secondary ticketing but warned that enforcement was crucial.

“There is no point bringing forward new laws if we cannot enforce them,” he said during a parliamentary debate. “We made manifesto commitments during the general election that we are absolutely determined to implement.”

The government formally launched a consultation into the market in early January. Walker is confident that legislation will materialise but includes a caveat.

“What I’m less confident about is the enforcement,” he remarks. “And the enforcement actually is quite simple, because whilst there’s too many touts for police to go out and [arrest], the choke point is the platforms themselves. It would choke off their ability to dominate Google paid ads and give a false and misleading impression that they were official and the tickets were genuine – or that they even had them – so that would stop overnight. It would deprive them of the oxygen on which they survive.

“I think, personally, as long as the legislation is drafted correctly and supranational, the legislation will work, but the devil is going to be in the detail.”

“You shouldn’t have a middleman, that has nothing invested in the business, make any money from it”

Live Nation boss Michael Rapino also spoke out in favour of regulating the resale market during an interview at a conference in LA in the autumn.

“We would love for resale to be regulated in some sense, cap it at 20%,” he said. “You shouldn’t have a middleman, that has nothing invested in the business, make any money from it.”

US senator Richard Blumenthal recently suggested that current customer protection measures were falling short and called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to “investigate and take strong enforcement action against deceptive and unlawful practices” in the ticketing market.

In an open letter published in December, he demanded vigorous enforcement of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act). Blumenthal claimed the FTC had only enforced the BOTS Act, which bans ticket bots, once since it was enacted in December 2016.

Meanwhile, the “outrageous” level of touting activity taking place across Europe prompted a small group of concert promoters to unite in the late 2010s to try and do something about it. The gathering morphed into a formal organisation, the Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT), which has the key objective of promoting face-value ticket resale.

“In an ideal world, the EU and UK would also share a joined-up approach”

“One of the main problems with ticket touting is that it is an industrial-scale business, operating across countries and regulatory systems at the expense of concertgoers,” reflects FEAT director Sam Shemtob. “In many EU member states, there are no laws on ticket resale beyond Europe-wide consumer rights regulations, which need to be properly enforced if they are to be effective.

“With music tourism flourishing, the rationale for harmonising the law across the EU increases. In an ideal world, the EU and UK would also share a joined-up approach.”

Shemtob describes the EU’s recent Digital Services Act (DSA) as “a step in the right direction,” but notes that it requires promoters to dedicate “time, resources, and legal expertise to first file reports on illegal ticket listings and then escalate them to national regulators.”

“Our recent experience with DSA reporting has left much to be desired,” he sighs. “Some resale platforms have failed to reply to reports addressed to them despite this being their legal obligation.

Meanwhile, the regulators set up to enforce the new digital rules have also been slow to get off the ground, and we are yet to see any investigations into or sanctions against rule-breaking by online ticket resale platforms.”

“The requirement for ticketholders and, above all, resale platforms to obtain approval from the promoter has helped to curb unauthorised reselling”

Shemtob breaks the methods of regulation currently adopted by different countries at a national level into two categories.

“The first is in France and Belgium, which have a ‘promoter-authorised resale’ model,” he says. “French criminal law is clear that tickets can only be resold for an event with authorisation by the event promoter. Fans can usually still resell their tickets, but it must be on a designated marketplace, sometimes with a cap on ticket price. If resellers are not authorised, promoters can legally challenge them.

“Secondary platforms that continue to allow unauthorised traders to list tickets can be held to account by larger-scale action – for example, French live entertainment union Ekhoscènes have successfully challenged Viagogo and Google on several occasions.”

Maxime Lignel of approved Rennes-based resale site Reelax Tickets says the regulations have had a “significant impact” on the French market.

“The requirement for ticketholders and, above all, resale platforms to obtain approval from the promoter has helped to curb unauthorised reselling and has contributed to a more controlled and fair market for consumers,” insists Lignel, “although there are always challenges in ensuring full compliance.”

“The main problem is the lack of control at the doors”

The second model of regulation, meanwhile, is in place in Ireland, as well as Denmark, Italy, Poland, and Portugal.

“These countries have an outright ban on ticket resale above face value, legislation which is easy for consumers and resellers to understand,” notes Shemtob. “Resale platforms operating in these countries have far fewer tickets listed at exorbitant prices, as doing so is in clear contravention of the law.”

Barley Arts founder Claudio Trotta, who has been fighting against the excesses of the market for more than two decades, organised the world-first Negation of Secondary Ticketing conference in 2017. He was later invited to take part in a debate on the issue in the European Parliament.

For-profit secondary ticketing was effectively outlawed in Italy in 2018 with the introduction of the Battelli law, which empowered communications industry regulator AGCOM to go after offenders and even shut down websites that continually break the law. Furthermore, the rules oblige personalised tickets to be checked on entry for all shows over 5,000-capacity, which has not been met with unanimous approval from organisers.

“The main problem is the lack of control at the doors,” stresses Trotta. “With most of Barley’s shows, the amount of secondary ticketing is very, very small. [But] I can’t say the same for many other promoters’ shows, where the controls do not exist at all.”
In Germany, there is no ban on ticket resale. However, promoters can restrict the resale price through the terms and conditions, usually at no more than 25% above face value.

“We have found these bodies are often slow to react or ineffective in policing this market”

A high-profile case saw Rammstein and European promoter MCT Agentur win a further court ruling in Germany in January last year, which compelled resale sites to abide by legal rules in the marketplace. The parties had previously obtained an interim judgement against Viagogo regarding the band’s 2023 European stadium tour. FKP Scorpio also obtained similar injunctions against the company – which acquired StubHub for $4.05bn in 2019, in a deal that brought together the world’s two largest secondary ticket sellers – for Ed Sheeran concerts in 2019 and 2021.

Down Under, almost every individual state and territory in Australia has laws governing the secondary ticketing market.

“In almost all cases, it limits the amount that a ticket can be ‘sold’ or ‘scalped’ to 110% of the original sale price,” explains Jarni Blakkarly, investigative journalist for Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group CHOICE. “By limiting the amount a ticket can be resold [for] to only 10% above what was originally paid for it, fans are meant to be protected from dodgy ticket scalpers, though there are questions as to how well this is working.”

Responsibility for enforcing the legislation falls to each state and territory’s consumer protection or fair-trading body, but Blakkarly questions the level to which that has been carried out.

“We have found these bodies are often slow to react or ineffective in policing this market,” he reports. “We have seen countless examples of these laws being breached and resulting in little to no action from the regulators, who have the power to issue big fines but don’t seem to have the resources or the will to do so.”

“If you take either the touts away or you take Google away, there’s no business”

Six years ago, the Australian Federal Court found that Viagogo misled consumers with obscured fees and claims of ticket scarcity. The ruling – and AU$7m penalty imposed for the breaches of the Australian Consumer Law – was upheld by the full federal court in 2022.

Nevertheless, Blakkarly professes to have seen both international and local ticket reselling websites “consistently and regularly breach the laws with little to no consequences.” And while he says government regulators have a part to play in policing the space, he also calls on the aforementioned Google to up its game.

“There is a role for search engines like Google to make sure that when you search ‘Oasis Sydney tickets’ in the search bar, you are taken to the legitimate official ticket seller and not unwittingly redirected to a reselling site that may overcharge you or leave you scammed,” argues Blakkarly.

Google’s influence on the secondary ticketing market has repeatedly been called into question by campaigners. Viagogo was banned from advertising on the platform globally in July 2019 after the latter came under fire from lawmakers for allegedly accepting advertising money from sites listing tickets fraudulently, but the ban was quietly lifted four months later.

“It’s been a bit of a journey with Google, in that they’ve been receptive at certain points,” said FanFair Alliance’s Webb, speaking at a panel event in London in October. “For three months, Google removed them from their advertising networks, and in that period, their traffic absolutely flatlined… If you take either the touts away or you take Google away, there’s no business.”

“We hope the Digital Fairness Act will further tighten up legislation around ticket resale”

This past autumn, the European Union published the results of its ‘fitness check’ reviewing existing consumer protection legislation across the EU. FEAT, along with other stakeholders in live music and ticketing, responded to the consultation, with 60% of stakeholders agreeing that more needs to be done to prevent ticket touting.

“A Digital Fairness Act consultation is now expected in the spring, led by EU commissioner for consumer protection Michael McGrath,” says Shemtob. “This will pave the way for new legislation that will consolidate and improve digital, tech, and consumer law online. We hope the Digital Fairness Act will further tighten up legislation around ticket resale.”

And as India and the Philippines join the growing list of territories considering touting crackdowns, they would be well-advised to heed the words of CHOICE’s Blakkarly in their discussions.

“Good laws need to be enforced,” he asserts, “otherwise they aren’t doing anyone any good.”

• The ILMC panel Pricing the Ticket: Balancing Expectations will take place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London from 3.15pm to 4.15pm on Wednesday 26 February

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The battle against industrial-scale ticket touting in the UK came under the spotlight once more in a panel discussion in London hosted by O2.

The conversation, which featured Virgin Media O2’s Gareth Griffiths, FanFair Alliance campaign manager Adam Webb and Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the APPG on ticket abuse, examined the pain points in the secondary ticketing market and explored what government and online businesses can do to protect consumers.

Presented by broadcaster Sinead Garvan, it followed research by O2 and YouGov, which indicated that ticket touts are costing music fans in the UK an extra £145 million (€174m) a year.

“Ticketing is a massive part of what we do,” explained Griffiths, director, partnerships and sponsorship at Virgin Media O2. “We sold 1.4m Priority Tickets last year, so this is a really big deal for us. We see our customers having a very hard time trying to buy tickets within the secondary market. It’s massively relevant to the core of our business, and we just want to make sure our customers get a fair deal.”

Based on a online survey of 2,044 adults, the data also revealed that approximately one in five tickets end up on a resale platform, while almost half (48%) of music fans who have attended live music events found it difficult to identify a secondary ticketing site.

O2’s UK venue sponsorship portfolio includes The O2 and 20 O2 Academy venues across the country. O2 stopped more than 50,000 suspected bots from entering its Priority customer reward platform over a six-week period, and Griffiths observed that touting had become “more technically advanced” since the pandemic.

“Now we’ve got a Labour government, we’re going to do something about it”

“We see presales all the time where you see 50-60,000 people in the waiting room for a really hot show, and you know that two-thirds of those are probably bots,” he said. “The real challenge for us now is fighting technology with technology, and we’re really looking into that in terms of the way our ticketing platform works, in terms of where our mobile business works, but it’s ramped up massively off the back of the shows coming back from Covid.”

Hodgson, who has campaigned against abuses in the market for more than a decade, said she was not surprised by the findings.

“I think they’re the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “I think it’s a lot more than £145 million if we were able to properly quantify it, and the lack of awareness didn’t surprise me either.

“The Metropolitan Police had an operation called Operation Podium to ensure that the Olympic tickets weren’t totally abused. They wrote a report afterwards, and basically said secondary ticketing and ticketing in general in this country was rife with criminality, organised crime and money laundering. And we’ve known that since 2012 and here we are, 12 years later, and thankfully, now we’ve got a Labour government, we’re going to do something about it.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to introduce new legislation to cap ticket resale, with the UK government preparing to launch a consultation into the secondary ticketing market. Hodgson offered an update on the likely timescale involved in terms of reform.

“Well, this parliament definitely, so that’s a long timescale,” she said. “There wasn’t a Bill in this King’s Speech… so it’s not going to be within the next year or so. Hopefully the consultation will happen over the next year, and then there’ll be a Bill brought forward in the next King’s Speech, so mid-term this parliament. I can’t wait.”

“The only two Oasis shows that weren’t listed on the secondaries were the two shows at Croke Park in Ireland… Legislation is a key part of solving this”

Webb discussed the lessons that could be learned from regulation introduced in other countries, such as Ireland, France and Australia.

“In Ireland, there was a Sale of Tickets Act introduced in 2021 basically outlawing resale,” he said. “The only two Oasis shows that weren’t listed on the secondaries were the two shows at Croke Park in Ireland. So it’s not the total solution, but you can see that legislation is a key part of solving this.

“The good thing now is that we’ve got the opportunity in the UK to look around the world, and actually design something better.”

Hodgson praised the anti-touting efforts of artists such as Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, Iron Maiden and Arctic Monkeys.

“Right from the start, they could see this was so unfair and didn’t want their fans being ripped off,” she said. “What is the true price, the fair price, the market price [of a ticket]? It should be the price that the artists with their management have decided is the price they want their fans to pay.”

“You’re never going to completely eradicate ticket touting, but you can minimise it”

Nevertheless, she noted that, unlike Sheeran, Taylor Swift’s team had not followed through on their threat to cancel tickets bought via non-official resale sites for her Eras Tour.

“The first concert in Edinburgh, we were waiting with bated breath, what’s she going to do?” said Hodgson. “And she didn’t cancel the tickets, because maybe her fans are so much younger… She was trying to protect her tickets, but when it came down to it, she wasn’t prepared to break the hearts of thousands.”

The influence of search engines in facilitating resale was also brought up. Viagogo was banned from advertising on Google globally in July 2019 after the latter came under fire from lawmakers for allegedly accepting advertising money from sites listing tickets fraudulently, but the ban was quietly lifted four months later.

“It’s been a bit of a journey with Google in that they’ve been receptive at certain points,” said Webb. “For three months, Google removed them from their advertising networks and in that period their traffic absolutely flatlined… If you take either the touts away or you take Google away, there’s no business.”

He added: “I’m pretty glass half full. The frustrating thing for me is that I don’t think it’s that hard to sort out. I think legislation is key to get Google to do the right thing. And again, clearly they need legislation for their lawyers to understand this, and then for the industry to make it easier to resell the ticket.

“You’re never going to completely eradicate ticket touting, but you can minimise it and reduce it to a level. And again, the music industry has been here before with things like piracy for the recorded sector, which was completely out of control. And now, obviously, you’ve got streaming services and a very buoyant recorded market. It’s a similar journey, I think.”

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The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told IQ its recent ruling against Viagogo has “set a precedent” for secondary ticketing websites.

Last month, the watchdog upheld a complaint from anti-touting campaign group FanFair Alliance that the resale platform had misled consumers in two advertorials published on the NME website in 2023. The paid-for ads were entitled “The best gigs to see this summer at Hyde Park” and “A beginners guide to getting Taylor Swift ‘Eras’ tour tickets. How to avoid the scammers and secure tickets.”

FanFair Alliance complained to the ASA, saying it understood the resale of tickets through resale websites like Viagogo was prohibited by the events listed.

Viagogo hit back, arguing it simply stated that tickets for the events were legitimately available on its marketplace and believed there was nothing in the ads which implied it was an official primary ticketing outlet. But the ASA rejected its argument and said the adverts must not appear again in the form complained of.

Speaking to IQ, the ASA’s Freddie Alcock says the case was relatively straightforward.

“The ruling is to protect consumers, ultimately, but also set a precedent going forward that you can’t omit information around the sale of these tickets”

“The reason they were misleading is because both events quite clearly stated in their terms and conditions that tickets bought on secondary ticketing platforms wouldn’t be valid,” he says. “We operate what we call ‘reverse burden of proof’, in that it’s on the advertiser to prove why something isn’t misleading, or to substantiate a claim they made – and Viagogo weren’t able to provide what we felt was substantial evidence that neither ads misled.

“The ruling is to protect consumers, ultimately, but also set a precedent going forward that you can’t omit information around the sale of these tickets. And to be fair to Viagogo, they have complied with it and removed both advertorials.”

Viagogo said it was “disappointed” by the ASA’s ruling, insisting it is “a safe, secure and regulated global online marketplace, and we are fully compliant with the law in all markets in which we operate”.

“We exist to get fans into live events and oppose anti-consumer actions taken by event organisers to restrict purchasing and resale options in an attempt to control the market. These measures ultimately harm fans by limiting choice, flexibility, and access.”

The company told the ASA that less than 1% of customers were denied entry to events after having purchased a ticket on its platform, and operated a guarantee so that if a customer was not admitted they would be entitled to a refund. But Alcock says that was not relevant to the complaint.

“It’s on our radar that a lot of events now say that resale tickets are only valid through a fan-to-fan exchange”

“That’s irrelevant to the problem here,” he says. “The problem here is that it does clearly misleadingly imply that tickets are valid. And [Viagogo’s] response, to be fair, was ‘Okay, we disagree, but we respect the ASA and its view.’

“We understand that [secondary ticketing] companies are allowed to operate – everyone has their views on that and it’s not for us to talk about. All that we’re concerned about is that, when they do advertise, they make sure that they don’t omit any information that could be considered important for the consumer to know upfront.”

Alcock says the regulator anticipates similar complaints to become more commonplace as artists increasingly seek to control where tickets for their shows can be resold.

“I think this ruling preemptively speaks to that issue,” he says. “It’s on our radar that a lot of events now say that resale tickets are only valid through a fan-to-fan exchange, or whatever. So hopefully this ruling serves as a reminder.

“Our main goal here is to protect consumers. We’re very conscious of the fact that someone’s buying a ticket for one of these events, one, they’re expensive and two, they might have to travel to it and pay for a hotel. There’s a lot that goes into someone deciding to go to one of these events.”

The ASA previously took action in 2018 alongside the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) around secondary ticket sales websites failing to properly disclose fees for tickets upfront.

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UK watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against Viagogo, ruling the resale platform misled consumers in two advertorials published on the NME website.

The first paid-for ad feature, headed, “The best gigs to see this summer at Hyde Park”, appeared on 16 June 2023, and listed five shows scheduled to take place at BST Hyde Park, along with text stating: “Fans can buy and sell tickets for [name of artist performing] at global marketplace, Viagogo, here”.

A second advertorial, seen on 20 July 2023, was headlined, “A beginners guide to getting Taylor Swift ‘Eras’ tour tickets. How to avoid the scammers and secure tickets”. It included text, which stated, “To purchase resale tickets as safely as possible, fans should avoid buying tickets via social media… Your best bet is ticket marketplaces like Viagogo, which connects ticket sellers with fans via a safe platform… Fans can buy and sell tickets for Taylor Swift at global marketplace, Viagogo here”.

Anti-touting campaign group FanFair Alliance complained to the ASA, saying it understood the resale of tickets through secondary ticketing websites like Viagogo was prohibited by the events listed in the ads.

Viagogo denied the ads were misleading, arguing it simply stated that tickets for the events were legitimately available on its marketplace and believed there was nothing in the ads which implied Viagogo was an official primary ticketing outlet.

The company said that less than 1% of customers were denied entry to events after having purchased a ticket on their platform, and they operated a guarantee so that if a customer was not admitted they would be entitled to a refund.

“Furthermore, they explained that all additional information which related to a ticket for a specific event was clearly made available to consumers on the Viagogo website before a consumer purchased that ticket,” adds the ASA’s summary.

“We told Viagogo AG to ensure future ads did not mislead consumers by omitting material information regarding the entry restrictions”

However, the regulator concluded that the adverts were misleading and said they must not appear again in the form complained of.

“We understood that Viagogo operated a guarantee whereby anyone who was not admitted to an event was entitled to receive a refund and we acknowledged that only a small proportion of their customers had been refused entry.” concludes the ASA. “However, we considered that the prohibition of resale tickets, as outlined in both the BST Hyde Park and Taylor Swift Eras tour terms and conditions, was material information which was likely to affect a consumer’s decision to purchase tickets through Viagogo.

“Because the ads omitted material information about the validity of tickets purchased through Viagogo and the risk of the venues refusing entry to consumers who had purchased their tickets through secondary ticketing websites, we concluded that they were misleading.

“We told Viagogo AG to ensure future ads did not mislead consumers by omitting material information regarding the entry restrictions on tickets purchased through them and other secondary ticketing sites.”

Responding to the assessment, Viagogo spokesperson says the firm is “disappointed” by the ASA’s ruling.

“Viagogo is a safe, secure and regulated global online marketplace, and we are fully compliant with the law in all markets in which we operate,” adds the firm. “We exist to get fans into live events and oppose anti-consumer actions taken by event organisers to restrict purchasing and resale options in an attempt to control the market. These measures ultimately harm fans by limiting choice, flexibility, and access.”

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IQ 124, the end-of-year issue of the international live music industry’s favourite magazine, is available to read online now to give you some reading matter over the holiday season.

The December/January edition brings down the curtain on 2023 by wrapping up the key trends and takeaways from the global live music business over the past 12 months, as well as looking ahead to what’s in store for the industry next year.

In addition, we celebrate trailblazer Memo Parra’s 30 years in music, charting his unique journey from stock market trader to director of international talent at giant Mexican promoter Ocesa.

Elsewhere, we crown road warrior Malcolm Weldon as The Gaffer 2023, and Derek Robertson glances back across the first ten years of First Direct Arena in Leeds – speaking to the people who have helped make the last decade such a success.

And in our latest market report, Adam Woods visits Poland to learn about the growing optimism among live music industry professionals.

For this edition’s columns and comments, FanFair Alliance’s Adam Webb highlights the reasons for the UK-based campaign’s relaunch, as ticket touts get ever more sophisticated, while Christina Hazboun, Keychange Project Manager, UK, at PRS Foundation outlines some of the initiatives the gender equality scheme is employing to end the music industry’s patriarchal landscape.

As always, the majority of the magazine’s content will appear online in some form in the next few weeks.

However, if you can’t wait for your fix of essential live music industry features, opinion and analysis, click here to subscribe to IQ from just £8 a month – or check out what you’re missing out on with the limited preview below:

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Some of the UK’s leading music companies have joined a fresh campaign against industrial-scale online ticket touting.

Led by FanFair Alliance, the campaign is urging MPs to introduce new legislation to “protect British consumers from unscrupulous and exploitative traders who operate on controversial websites such as Viagogo and StubHub”.

WME, CAA, ATC, 13 Artists, Kilimanjaro, FKP Scorpio and One Fiinix are among the parties to back FanFair Alliance’s three pro-consumer measures regarding legislative action, tech action and industry action.

The first proposed measure is new laws making it illegal to resell a ticket for profit, bringing the UK into line with countries such as Ireland, France, Australia and Italy, which have introduced legislation to ban or restrict resale for more than face value.

The second calls for platforms like Google and YouTube to stop promoting touts, and help direct consumers towards legitimate sources of tickets. And the final point rallies the live music business to make capped consumer-friendly ticket resale visible and viable.

“We’ve seen many other countries adopt strict anti-touting legislation. It is high time that the UK caught up”

The fresh campaign comes a few months after the Department of Business & Trade rejected a series of recommendations aimed at strengthening existing laws around ticket resale in order to protect consumers, published by the Competition & Markets Authority.

But on Monday (11 September), at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse in the House of Commons, the music industry seized on the opportunity presented by the next election to call for a “reset” in how politicians, regulators and the music business look to tackle ongoing problems in this market.

“Over the course of the next year there will be a general election in the UK, the outcome of which will define the music industry for the rest of the decade,” said Tom Kiehl, the interim chief executive of UK Music, an industry body.

“It is vital as we approach this pivotal moment that policymakers secure a fair deal for music lovers by ending rip-off secondary ticketing practices.”

Adam Webb, campaign manager, FanFair Alliance adds: “When the FanFair campaign was established in 2016, online ticket touting in the UK was out of control. There was little enforcement of consumer law, and fans were systematically misled and ripped off by the dominant secondary ticketing platforms. Despite substantial progress to improve this situation it is now clear we need a reset. We need fresh legislation and fresh thinking – ending once and for all the parasitical practices of online ticket touts, while doing more to proactively promote capped consumer-friendly ticket resale. The UK is rightly proud of its live music culture, and this is an area we should and could be leading the world.”

Sharon Hodgson MP, chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse, comments: “Since I introduced a Private Members Bill in 2010 that attempted to outlaw the resale of tickets for profit, we’ve seen many other countries adopt strict anti-touting legislation. It is high time that the UK caught up. Every week we continue to see thousands of ticket buyers fall foul of predatory and unlawful practices in the secondary market. I wholeheartedly support FanFair Alliance’s three common sense goals which would provide audiences with far greater protections, while helping to boost one of our country’s most important cultural industries.”

Companies and individuals backing FanFair Alliance’s three pro-consumer measures include:
13 Artists
John Rostron, Association of Independent Festivals
Alex Bruford, ATC Live
Brian Message, ATC Management
CAA Music
Paul Crockford, Crockford Management
Stephen Taverner, East City Management
Adam Tudhope, Everybody’s Management
David Martin, CEO, Featured Artists Coalition
Daniel Ealam, FKP Scorpio
Stuart Camp, Grumpy Old Management
Harvey Goldsmith
Alec Mckinlay & Marcus Russell, Ignition Management
Sybil Bell, Independent Venue Week
Richard Jones, Key Music Management
Stuart Galbraith, Kilimanjaro Live
Harry Magee, Modest! Management
Mark Bent & Natasha Gregory, Mother Artists
Annabella Coldrick, Chief Executive, Music Managers Forum
Music Venue Trust
Paul Craig, Nostromo Management
Jon Ollier, One Fiinix
Phantom Music Management
Angus Baskerville & Hayley Morrison, Pure Represents
Tom Kiehl, Interim CEO, UK Music
Gareth Griffiths, Director Partnerships and Sponsorship at Virgin Media O2
Ian McAndrew, Wildlife Entertainment

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The UK government has rejected the recommendations of the British competition regulator to tighten laws around online ticket touting.

In a 2021 report, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed stronger rules to deal with illegal activity on non-price-capped secondary ticketing sites, including measures to clamp down on the bulk-buying of tickets as well as the practice of “speculative ticketing”, where sellers list tickets they don’t yet own.

Other suggestions included ensuring platforms are fully responsible for incorrect information about tickets that are listed for sale on their websites, and a new system of licensing for platforms that sell secondary tickets that would enable an authority to act quickly and issue sanctions.

However, in the government’s response, business secretary Kevin Hollinrake MP says he is “not convinced” by the need for additional legislative changes.

“I am not convinced that the additional costs that would fall on ticket buyers (as regulatory costs would be passed on) are justified by the degree of harm set out in your report,” says Hollinrake. “This is especially the case when we are already proposing to give the CMA additional administrative powers to protect consumers which the CMA could deploy in the secondary ticketing market.

“However, we propose to keep the position on maximum numbers of ticket resales under review as part of our ongoing monitoring of the legislative landscape in the ticketing market and in the light of technological, enforcement and other market developments.”

“It appears the uncapped market may still provide a service of value to some consumers”

He continues: “The government notes and agrees with the CMA recommendation that there should not be a ban on the uncapped secondary ticket market. Whilst both the way tickets are sold and used are changing and there is a growing authorised capped ticket resale market to help those who can no longer use their purchased ticket, it appears the uncapped market may still provide a service of value to some consumers.”

Hollinrake argues that is “too soon to conclude that the only way forward is further legislation focused on this market”.

“As you are aware, there are a number of improvements to other aspects of consumer law which we have now published in our response to the 2021 consultation,” he adds. “These will be our priority in the immediate future, rather than changes to the secondary ticketing regime specifically.”

“The government has effectively given bad actors a free pass to continue acquiring tickets in bulk to popular events and to engage in speculative and fraudulent selling”

Sharon Hodgson MP, chair of the APPG on ticket abuse, says the group is “struggling to understand” why the government has turned down the CMA’s recommendations.

“In August 2021, the CMA made it clear to the government that a handful of additional safeguards could help reduce the scale of unlawful online ticket touting, and better protect consumers,” says Hodgson. “Nineteen months on, and all their recommendations have been rejected. We are still struggling to understand why, and on what basis.

“Rather than improving the capacity of enforcement agencies to clamp down on malpractice, the government has effectively given bad actors a free pass to continue acquiring tickets in bulk to popular events and to engage in speculative and fraudulent selling. These individuals can make extraordinary profits at the expense of ordinary fans who are left ripped off and out of pocket.

“The UK is rightly proud of its live event industry, but an uncontrolled black market risks harming the consumer experience and wreaking untold damage on the sector overall.”

“The experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely”

Adam Webb, campaign manager of UK-based campaign against industrial-scale online ticket touting FanFair Alliance, shares similar sentiments.

“In August 2021, the Competition & Markets Authority published a series of common sense recommendations to the government that aimed to further protect consumers from being ripped off by unscrupulous ticket touts and parasitical ticket resale sites,” he says. “These included new measures to clamp down on the unlawful bulk-buying of tickets and large-scale speculative fraud, where rogue traders list tickets for sale that they do not possess. Research by FanFair Alliance has shown these problems remain rampant on certain secondary ticketing platforms.

“Nineteen months down the line, and, despite overwhelming evidence of continuing bad practice, the government has today comprehensively rejected the CMA’s advice – without, we believe, consulting with experts, campaigners or the live music industry.

“The experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely. Although much progress has been made in recent years to tame the UK’s black market for tickets, FanFair Alliance shares the views of the CMA that further action is still required to tackle these evident and ongoing problems with online secondary ticketing.”

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Just three people are responsible for over two thirds of UK festival and outdoor event tickets listed by resale platform Viagogo, according to a new report.

An investigation by ITV News, based on research carried out by anti-touting campaign group FanFair Alliance, found that fewer than 10% of tickets on the secondary ticketing site were being sold by ordinary consumers.

Analysis of more than 11,000 tickets from 174 events over a three-month period revealed that over two-thirds were being sold by just three “traders” for a combined total of £1.7 million – almost £1m above face value.

The report found evidence of so-called “speculative” tickets – which sellers do not yet possess – being illegally offered for sale.

The investigation contacted 10 festivals being listed by the three traders, with two saying the sellers had bought nowhere near the number of tickets being advertised, and the rest saying they had no record of them buying any tickets at all. One of the traders’ listings have since been removed from Viagogo’s website.

“We treat concerns about tickets with the utmost priority”

“We treat concerns about tickets with the utmost priority,” says a spokesperson for Viagogo. “In this instance, we acted swiftly to remove the relevant listings and have returned several to the site that have clearly demonstrated that they are legitimate and valid.

“We continue to review the remaining listings and these remain off site.”

Viagogo was fined €23.5 million by Italy’s Communications Regulatory Authority AGCOM in June for breaking the country’s rules on secondary ticketing.

The decision followed an investigation by Italy’s financial crime enforcement agency the Guardia di Finanza, which found the platform had listed tickets for 131 events at prices up to six or seven times above their face-value. Viagogo responded that since it had already been held a ‘passive’ intermediary platform by the Council of State in a previous final judgment, it was confident the fines would be annulled on appeal.

Earlier, in May, Australia’s full federal court dismissed Viagogo’s appeal against a ruling that it had made misleading claims on its website relating to the reselling of concert and sports tickets.

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The International Ticketing Report is a one-off annual health check on the global ticketing business, with emphasis on the sector’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The past two years have been turbulent for the business, but with consumer demand for live events now at an all-time peak, the challenges of fulfilling the most packed event schedule in history will test ticketers to the hilt.

Staffing, vouchers schemes and refunds, demand, consumer behaviour, communication, new products & services, secondary ticketing, pandemic lessons and recovery are among the challengers addressed by industry-leading experts in this extended report.

The report, originally published in IQ105, is in lieu of the International Ticketing Yearbook – a standalone global guide to the live entertainment market that will return in 2022.

IQ will publish sections of the International Ticketing Report over the coming weeks but subscribers can read the entire feature in issue 105 of IQ Magazine now.

To read the previous instalment of the report on new products and services, click here.

The controversial business of secondary ticketing was never far from the headlines, pre-Covid, and indeed on the eve of the pandemic being declared, leading European operation Viagogo acquired eBay’s ticketing division, StubHub, for an eye-watering $4.05billion (€3.5bn) in cash.

The timing of that transaction, in February 2020, led to financial publication Forbes branding it the “worst deal ever” as sports and live entertainment were among the first sectors to close down, effectively shutting down the secondary market, too.

Since then, Viagogo sold its StubHub assets outside of North America, primarily to meet anti-competition regulations, but with little to no revenues over the past 18 months, the company will be determined to make the most of 2022’s packed events schedule to start clawing back some of that substantial investment.

According to Adam Webb, campaign manager at FanFair Alliance, an anti-touting campaign group, “The fear now is that the secondary players will be as desperate to get as much inventory as they can, and the other side of that is that some promoters will be desperate to sell tickets any which way, as well.”

“There’s still a lot of work to do on the industry’s behalf educating their consumers about capped resale services”

With thousands of tours, festivals, and other events going on sale in the weeks and months ahead, Webb is all too aware that many people may need to use secondary services to divest of tickets for rescheduled shows they can no longer attend for any number of reasons.

Webb contends that while those ticket exchange platforms with capped resale rules also suffered during the pandemic, they also seem to have weathered the storm.

“Just before the likes of Reading and Wireless festivals, there were loads of tickets available on places like Twickets, so there was real need – possibly driven by Covid – for a lot of people to genuinely resell their tickets,” says Webb.

“Because of dates being rescheduled or people who have health concerns, I think having that option through is probably more vital than ever, and there will be a need for primary agents to up their game a little bit to make sure fans are aware of those ticket exchange services, what they are and how to use them.”

He adds, “Going into 2022, with the calendar busier than probably ever before, lots of consumers are still unaware of the difference between an uncapped seller like StubHub or Viagogo and the primary ticket services.

“So I think there’s still a lot of work to do on the industry’s behalf educating their consumers about capped resale services and how to use them. All of the primary ticket companies have a resale service or are affiliated with one but those services need to be marketed a bit better.”

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