Published
Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 16:40
- New legislation will make the process of buying tickets more transparent.
The UK government has agreed to back new legislation that helps protect secondary ticket buyers from fraud.
The secondary ticket market, which allows people to buy unwanted tickets to events, has long been plagued by touting. The Guardian report that the new legislation targets people who buy event tickets, often in bulk, before selling them at a higher price. It'll become a legal requirement for resale companies to provide full information on tickets, including its face value. Companies will also be required to report illegal activity.
Conservative peer Lord Moynihan, who tabled the proposal, told The Guardian: "One of the major reasons why you can't get tickets for high-demand events as a member of the public is because there's specialised software available to touts which sweeps up the supply within a nanosecond of them going on sale. Then those tickets are made available on the secondary market at sometimes five or 10 times the price. From now on that process is restricted, because you have to have the seat number, row number and so on."
The new legislation will likely be passed as an amendment to the consumer rights bill within the next three months. It marks a change of tack for the government: culture secretary, Sajid Javid, had opposed recent calls for reform, while a 2014 government report had backed self-regulation in the industry.
Mike Weatherley MP, co-chair of an all-party parliamentary group on secondary ticketing, called the proposals "a step in the right direction." He added: "This has been a long-standing campaign by the APPG to get some overdue changes in place. The free market system has broken down due to the introduction of 'bots' and other factors, enabling, on occasions, obscene profiteering for intermediaries against the interest of fans and the wishes of those putting on the event."
In 2014 Resident Advisor started its own ticket resale service geared towards creating a fair system for promoters and music fans.