The UK government recently completed a consultation on the resale of tickets for live events in an attempt to address concerns about inflated ticket prices for fans.
Ticket Resales
In an ideal world, all that resale markets do is allow people who have bought a ticket to something they can no longer attend to sell that ticket on, to someone else who missed out on the opportunity to buy tickets.
However, as many of us know, it’s usually not this straightforward, as resold tickets are often at excessive prices. Some even bulk buy large quantities of tickets, sometimes illegally, to then resell these at higher prices. Not only can this lead to fans facing inflated prices, but it can also lead to them missing events entirely, due to receiving fake or invalid tickets, or never receiving a ticket at all.
The UK government recently consulted on the resale of live events tickets in order to look at ways in which the ticket resale market can be improved, “including measures to tackle excessive prices, support better enforcement of consumer protection laws, improve platform accountability and increase transparency for fans.” This consultation was closed on 4th April 2025.
Findings from Which?
Which? found that:
- 61% of those who use secondary ticketing sites to buy tickets do so because official sites have sold out
- 61% of UK adults say the struggle to understand the difference between ticketing websites, with 14% of secondary ticket buyers not realising they were even on a secondary ticket website when they bought the tickets
- 21% of those buying tickets via secondary ticketing websites or through social media experienced issues, with 60% of these never making it to the event and 30% being charged extra fees at the venue
Responses
In response to the government consultation, O2 argued that:
- Ticket resales should be subject to a price cap of 10% or less, to stop the practice of reselling tickets for far more than their face value
- A ticket price cap should be a blanket cap applying to all live events taking place in the UK
- Resale platforms should be prohibited from allowing sellers to list more tickets for an event than an individual is allowed to buy on the primary market
The Football Supporters’ Association stated that football’s relationship with secondary ticketing platforms is in “serious need of review.”
They stated:
“Clubs are direct monopoly suppliers to their supporter base as matchgoers do not switch teams giving the top clubs the opportunity to drive up prices. It is also illegal to resell match tickets, unless it is via a club’s licensed platform, so there is no free market of ticket sales.”
They argue that clubs should only be allowed to resell tickets at face value and that supporters should receive that refund in full once the club sells on a ticket. They state that there is currently nothing to stop clubs from selling tickets directly to their supporters at face value or running their own in-house schemes, as opposed to allowing third party companies to act as a go-between for fans and their club with the objective of driving up prices and taking a commission from sales.
Like 02, Which? argue that a price cap should be introduced for resold tickets. They also stated that a tougher enforcement regime is needed, and that resale platforms should be legally required to verify that the seller owns the ticket before they can list it for resale, and be asked to verify information about a ticket, like it’s original price and location within the venue
You can read more about the government’s briefing on ticket resales here.