Face value ticket exchange platform Tixel has officially launched in the US after reporting a period of “significant” organic growth in the region.

Coinciding with the announcement, the Australian-hailing firm, whose clients include Superstruct Entertainment UK and the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, has signed up a raft of new partners including Burning Man Project, FNGRS CRSSD, Under the Big Sky and Vermont’s Higher Ground venue, along with primary ticketing platforms Eventbrite, Leap Event Technology, and Prekindle.

The company, which launched in 2018 and saw tickets exchange on more than 14,000 unique events around the world in 2024, says its latest expansion reflects a growing demand in the US for a “safe and fair” fan-to-fan ticket exchange.

“Buying a resale ticket in the US is often synonymous with paying two, three, or four times the original purchase price,” says Tixel CEO and founder Zac Leigh. “Scalpers and brokers skim the profit and the fan, artist and promoter lose. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Prices on Tixel are automatically capped based on the original ticket purchase price

Prices on Tixel are automatically capped based on the original ticket purchase price, while the firm’s suite of tools and data-sharing for promoters and ticketers within the platform is geared towards selling more tickets, reducing no-shows and increasing marketing capabilities.

“With Tixel’s entry to the market there is now a safe and fair place for fans in the US to exchange tickets to any kind of event without fear of spec listings, fake tickets, or having to pay way too much simply because they missed out in the initial onsale,” adds Leigh.

Tixel is also a supporter of NIVA (National Independent Venue Association), and backs the organisation’s advocacy and policy reform efforts, which call for greater transparency, stronger consumer protections and ticketing practices.

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Twickets founder Richard Davies says the number of Oasis tickets being resold on the fan-to-fan platform is picking up markedly as the Gallagher brothers’ long-awaited reunion tour draws ever closer.

The Oasis Live ’25 Tour was the biggest-ever concert launch in UK and Ireland history, as more than 10 million fans from 158 countries competed to buy the 1.4m tickets available for the group’s first shows since 2009.

Twickets, which enables users to offload tickets at no more than face value when they can no longer make a show, is the official ticket resale platform for the concerts, with the arrangement extended to cover Oasis’ upcoming international dates in Australia and the Americas.

Davies tells IQ that while Twickets had seen ticket trading in the “low thousands” for the sold out run so far, there has been a noticeable upturn in volume as the days tick down until the SJM and Live Nation-promoted run kicks off at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in Wales on 4 July.

“It’s starting to double month-on-month now,” he says. “This month’s looking quite strong for trading on Oasis and I think, as we get to next month, we’ll start seeing a lot of tickets becoming available. That’s always the pattern for us.”

“The UK has really started to heat up now and I think we’ll start to see volume from now on”

On that subject, Davies points out that a “huge number” of tickets were bought and sold late in the day for Sam Fender’s recent UK stadium shows.

“It was all in the last ten days,” he says. “We hit the beginning of June and saw so much trading on Sam Fender, and that will happen with Oasis as well. The UK has really started to heat up now and I think we’ll start to see volume from now on. We’ve had a few standard tickets appear, but they get snapped up so quickly – literally, within a second. People are just sitting there refreshing their browsers.”

The enormous level of interest has prompted Twickets to remove ticket alerts for the tour.

“It was chaos,” reports Davies. “So many people would have alerts set up and not get to the inventory, so we’re having to leave it as first come, first served, as they’re getting bought within a millisecond of being listed. But I’m sure there will be a plentiful supply near the time. It always happens, no matter what the show.”

It was announced today (18 June) that official Oasis Live ’25 Fan Stores, featuring tour merchandise and limited edition products, are set to launch nationwide ahead of the tour. The first one will open in the band’s native Manchester this Friday 20 June, with others to follow in cities including Cardiff, London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Birmingham.

The Oasis on-sale last August became infamously marred by a dynamic ticketing row that triggered multiple inquiries in the UK and Ireland. Strict anti-touting measures were put in place, with fans permitted to resell their tickets through Twickets or Ticketmaster only.

LN and SJM vowed to cancel up to 50,000 tickets deemed to have breached the rules in an effort to clamp down on unofficial resale sites, while Ticketmaster and See Tickets cancelled tickets identified as being purchased by bots.

“Every year since the pandemic, we’ve grown substantially”

Meanwhile, Davies has shared his glee at Twickets’ recent appointment of former See Tickets and Eventim UK veteran Martin Fitzgerald as its first non-executive director.

“It’s great having Martin on board,” says Davies. “He’s one of the good guys and it’s really nice to have someone with his pedigree behind us. He’s someone who can offer us a lot of advice and experience, and he has an amazing address book of contacts as well.”

Twickets has previously partnered with both Liam and Noel Gallagher on their respective solo shows, as well as acts including Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, Adele, Queen, Take That and Stormzy. Its revenue model sees buyers pay a standard booking fee of 10-15% of the ticket price.

Davies reports the firm, which is backed by several high-profile managers, agents and promoters, has had a “very good” H1 2025.

“We’ve increased by 25% in terms of volume year-on-year for the first half of the year – which is without doubt going to be the quieter half of the year for us – and roughly 30% in terms of revenue,” he says. “So revenue is outstripping volume, which demonstrates that ticket prices are going up. Every year since the pandemic, we’ve grown substantially, and we’re going to be profitable again. We’re profitable for the first half and we’ll be certainly profitable for the second half.”

“I still come across too many people who don’t know about Twickets, or have only just recently discovered us”

Twickets participated in the UK government’s consultation into the secondary ticketing market, which closed in April and pledged to “tackle greedy touts and give power back to fans”, with a new cap on the price of resale tickets among measures being considered.

“We called for a cap on the original price of the ticket, with no markup at all,” says Davies. “It’s just a question of what that cap is now, more than anything else, but I don’t expect it to be confirmed anytime soon. By the sound of it, it’s going to be well into 2026 before any legislation gets passed.”

As for Twickets’ future, Davies says the priority for next phase of the company is to continue to raise its profile.

“Whilst we’ve had five million unique users in the first half of this year, that’s just a fraction of the event-going marketplace so we need to keep spreading the word,” he says. “I still come across too many people who don’t know about Twickets, or have only just recently discovered us, so we’ve got a lot to do and that’s where Martin can help us as well.

“It’s important that we continue to grow and build out from what we’ve achieved so far in the UK – and beyond just music. We’ve now started working in the theatre world and hopefully in sport as well, so there’s a lot more that can be achieved. There’s a lot of work still to be done, but that’s exciting, because we’ve achieved a lot, with potential for so much more.”

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StubHub International is threatening to leave the UK if the government follows through on its plans to implement a price cap on resale tickets.

The government previously indicated it would be looking to cap resale at 10% above face value, but sought views on levels ranging from no uplift at all to 30%.

But the secondary ticketing marketplace claims that even a 30% cap above face value would “make it very challenging for us to operate”.

“The things that we do, the fraud protections, the things that we build on the platform, the customer service with a live person… it has a cost,” StubHub International CEO Bob Kupbens tells the Financial Times. “Our investors wouldn’t allow us to burn money if we didn’t think there was a viable business here.

“Under a policy landscape where a price cap was implemented, StubHub International would be unable to offer our… guarantee or sustain our levels of customer service. As such, we would be forced to cease our UK operations.”

The long-anticipated consultation into the secondary ticketing market was initiated back in January, with the Labour government vowing to “tackle greedy touts and give power back to fans”.

Interested parties including fans, ticketing platforms and the wider live events sector were invited to submit responses, with the UK live music industry coming out strongly in favour of a price cap as the consultation drew to a close in April.

“We remain optimistic that the government will listen to these expert voices, and deliver a policy that cracks down on touting”

According to analysis by UK watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), typical mark-ups on tickets sold on the secondary market are often more than 50%, and investigations by Trading Standards have uncovered evidence of tickets being resold for up to 6x their original cost.

Viagogo, which announced its acquisition of StubHub for US$4.05bn in 2019, was forced to sell its international business to  due to competition concerns. StubHub International is now owned by US-based private equity fund, Digital Fuel Capital LLC.

Consequently, Adam Webb, campaign manager of anti-touting pressure group FanFair Alliance contends that whether the company “can conceivably ‘leave’ the UK is a bit of a moot point”.

“However, as we wait for the government to respond to the Putting Fans First consultation, it feels support for a price cap on ticket resale is fast gathering pace,” he adds. “As well as FanFair and the wider music industry, this common sense move is backed by a growing number of MPs, by the Competition & Markets Authority and now by consumer champion Which, who last week launched a Stop Fleecing Fans campaign.

“We remain optimistic that the government will listen to these expert voices, and deliver a policy that cracks down on touting and helps boost a competitive, consumer-friendly ticket resale market.”

StubHub filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in New York in March, setting out its “mission” to be the “global destination for consumers to access live events and experiences”. The firm said that buyers from over 200 countries and territories purchased more than 40 million tickets from over 1m sellers on its marketplace in 2024, reporting that its revenue rose 29.5% year-on-year to $1.77 billion.

It acknowledged in the IPO filing that its business is subject to a “number of risks and uncertainties”.

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A proposal to ban the resale of tickets at inflated prices is set to go before the Swedish parliament.

Unlike its Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Norway, Sweden does not have legislation in place prohibiting resale above face value.

Former minister of culture Amanda Lind points to the existence of secondary ticketing laws in other markets and stresses the need for “tangible penalties” so that the regulation has an effect.

“It is completely absurd that this can continue, that various private companies can prey on people who just want to experience concerts and culture,” the Green Party member, who will present the plans to Sweden’s Riksdag [highest decision-making body] shortly, tells local media.

Trade body Svensk Live has backed the move, saying it has been a long time coming.

“Svensk Live has long worked through political contacts to achieve legislation regarding the secondary market”

“Svensk Live has long worked through political contacts to achieve legislation regarding the secondary market and we think it is positive that it is now up for decision in the Riksdag,” says the organisation.

Currently, promoters in Sweden are only required to highlight that tickets are only secure when sold by authorised sellers.

IQ provides an update on the success of various legislative initiatives around the planet here.

The UK government recently concluded its long-awaited consultation into the secondary market, with the UK live music industry coming out strongly in favour of a ticket resale cap.

Last week, it was revealed that a survey of 8,000 music fans in the UK found that the overwhelming majority of respondents are in favour of a price cap. The findings were shared as part of the Music Fans Voice (MFV) survey into the behaviours, perceptions, concerns, motivations and opinions of some of the UK’s concertgoers.

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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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The UK live music industry has come out strongly in favour of a price cap on resale tickets as the government’s consultation into the secondary market draws to a close.

But ahead of Friday’s deadline (4 April) IQ understands there is no consensus on the acceptable level of resale uplift the UK business will recommend. The government previously indicated it would be looking to cap resale at 10% above face value, but sought views on levels ranging from no uplift at all to 30%.

The long-anticipated consultation was initiated back in January, with the government vowing to “tackle greedy touts and give power back to fans”. Interested parties including fans, ticketing platforms and the wider live events sector were invited to submit responses.

Jonathan Brown, CEO of the Society of Ticket Retailers (STAR), says the organisation supports a “consumer-first approach” to resale.

“We back a capped resale model that already operates effectively in the UK, enabling genuine fans to resell tickets they can’t use, while preventing the kind of speculative profiteering that distorts the market,” he says. “A mandated price cap will help remove the incentive for touts to purchase tickets at scale for resale and therefore reduce bot attacks, protect consumers, and ensure fairer access to events.

“However, any new legislation needs to be backed with agile, responsive and effective enforcement, including against offshore resellers and platforms seeking to ignore UK law.”

“Ticketmaster welcomes any action to protect fans and support the live industry”

Speaking to IQ, Ticketmaster UK MD Andrew Parsons says the company is committed to making ticketing “simple and transparent”.

“Since 2018, our resale service has been capped at the original price paid, providing fans a safe place to sell tickets they can’t use right up to the event date,” he says. “This ensures as many people as possible can go and, as we all know, packed venues benefit not just performers, and the venues themselves, but also the local economy.

“We support proposals to introduce an industry-wide resale price cap, backed by a strong regulatory regime and enforcement. Ticketmaster welcomes any action to protect fans and support the live industry.”

AXS UK MD Chris Lipscomb stresses that the firm “supports any effort that helps get tickets into the hands of real fans at fair prices”. “To that end, we limit resale in the UK to 10% above price paid,” he notes.

Richard Davies, founder of ethical resale business Twickets, says the company “strongly supports” a cap on resale ticket prices.

“We’ve consistently upheld a strict policy of reselling tickets only at face value plus original booking fee to counteract exploitative practices prevalent in the secondary market,” says Davies. “We see no validity in allowing any mark up on the original price paid by the customer.

“The new legal obligations placed on resale platforms will mean a step toward protecting genuine fans and fostering fairness within the ticketing ecosystem. While inflated resale prices are undeniably problematic, the excessive booking fees charged by secondary platforms compound the issue further.”

“As ever, there are details to be hammered out, but we are right behind the broad thrust”

Jon Collins, CEO of UK trade body LIVE, points out that research carried out for the group by market research agency Opinium showed that just 12% of the 2,000 members of public surveyed opposed the idea of a cap.

“LIVE fully supports government action in this space to remove touts from our sector, end ticket harvesting and see tickets in the hands of genuine fans,” he says. “As ever, there are details to be hammered out, but we are right behind the broad thrust. We are pleased to see government delivering on its manifesto commitment in this area, bringing forward measures which permit responsible and fair fan-to-fan resale, while eliminating third-party profiteering.”

O2, which sells over 1.5 million tickets per year to its customers via Priority Tickets, has been vocal in calling for a 10% price cap on resale. The firm’s Fight for Fairer Ticketing campaign partnered with Bastille singer Dan Smith last week to launch Stamp It Tout – an online hub designed to help fans navigate the ticket resale market safely.

UK watchdog the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) added its backing to a price cap last month. It stopped short of recommending a specific limit, warning of “unintended consequences, such as creating a point of price coordination for sellers”. However, it noted that proceeding with a “no uplift” option on resale would be consistent with existing legislation in Ireland and New South Wales, Australia.

According to CMA analysis, typical mark-ups on tickets sold on the secondary market are often more than 50 per cent and investigations by Trading Standards have uncovered evidence of tickets being resold for up to six times their original cost.

“The resale price should be capped at the price paid – including booking fee – with a small fixed admin fee”

Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT) director Sam Shemtob notes that talk of a UK price cap was mooted as far back as 2011 by Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse.

“She’s kept ticket resale as an issue throughout the years of being in opposition, and it’s fantastic that the UK could be close to a historic change in the law in this respect,” says Shemtob. “Our position is in our name – that’s to say the resale price should be capped at the price paid – including booking fee – with a small fixed admin fee chargeable on top for the platform handling the transaction.”

Other plans being considered by the government include limiting the number of tickets resellers can list to the maximum they are allowed to purchase on the primary market.

In addition, there are proposals to increase the accountability of ticket resale websites and apps, creating new legal obligations so that they can be held responsible by Trading Standards and the Competition and Market Authority for the accuracy of information they provide to fans. The government also plans to review existing legislation to strengthen consumer protection, including stronger fines and a new licensing regime for resale platforms.

Adam Webb, campaign manager for anti-touting pressure group FanFair Alliance, says the solution should be “simple, palatable and effective”. He also warns of the need to close off “all potential loopholes, and ensure offshore ‘uncapped’ ticket touting websites cannot circumvent the rules”.

“Promisingly, it feels the Competition & Markets Authority are thinking along very similar lines here, and we remain optimistic this consultation will lead to some genuinely positive outcomes,” he finishes.

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Following months of rumours, secondary ticketing marketplace StubHub has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in New York.

The company, which operates as Viagogo outside North America, originally planned to go public last summer with a target valuation of US$16.5 billion only to later postpone the move, reportedly due to unfavourable market conditions.

But it has now pressed ahead with its SEC filing, which sets out its “mission” to be the “global destination for consumers to access live events and experiences”.

“We believe we operate the largest global secondary ticketing marketplace for live events,” reads the prospectus. “Our business model has achieved scale with high growth and generated significant revenue, profit and cash flow. We connect fans around the world with sellers who use our marketplace to reach passionate fans and price tickets efficiently.”

The firm says that buyers from over 200 countries and territories purchased more than 40 million tickets from over 1m sellers on its marketplace in 2024, reporting that its revenue rose 29.5% year-on-year to $1.77 billion. It posted a net loss of $2.8m – attributed to increased costs and expenses – compared to a net profit of $405.2m in 2023 and a net loss of $261m in 2022.

“We believe the international secondary ticketing market represents a $23 billion opportunity over the medium term”

“We believe we are the leader in the $18 billion North American secondary ticketing market based on our GMS [gross merchandise sales] for 2024 as compared to similar metrics of our largest competitors for 2024,” it continues. “We believe the international secondary ticketing market represents a $23 billion opportunity over the medium term as these markets continue to be penetrated by global digital commerce.

“We are also growing in the $132 billion global original issuance market and believe we can help enable the distribution and recovery of approximately $22 billion in unsold tickets through our marketplace.”

Viagogo announced its acquisition of StubHub for US$4.05bn in 2019 in a landmark deal that brought together the world’s two largest secondary ticket sellers, and placed Viagogo founder and CEO Eric Baker back in control of the company he co-founded in 2000.

The sale was approved by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after Viagogo was forced to sell its international business due to competition concerns.

In its IPO filing, StubHub acknowledges that its business is subject to a “number of risks and uncertainties”.

“Our business depends on supply and demand for and continued occurrence of large-scale sports, concerts, theatre and other live events, and any decrease in the number of such events or the willingness of consumers to attend such events could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations,” says the document.

“This indicates a recovering US IPO market with owners seeing a window of opportunity to go public”

StubHub also notes that “changes in internet search engine algorithms and dynamics, or any limitation or discontinuation of support by such search engines for our paid search results, could have an adverse impact on traffic for our sites and ultimately, our business, financial condition and results of operations”.

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. The ban was quietly lifted four months later.

The Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT) – which is dedicated to the promotion of face-value ticket resale across the continent – has said that it is estimated that Google is responsible for driving two-thirds of traffic to Viagogo.

Meanwhile, the UK government launched a consultation into the secondary ticketing market in January, with measures being considered including a new cap on the price of resale tickets, alongside plans to limit the number of tickets resellers can list to the maximum they are allowed to purchase on the primary market. Various other legislative initiatives relating to resale are also already in place in other territories.

Alluding to the state of play, StubHub notes: “We operate in international markets and are subject to risks associated with the legislative, judicial, accounting, regulatory, political and economic conditions specific to such markets, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

Furthermore, it states: “We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. If we fail to remedy these material weaknesses, experience additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to continue to design, implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial condition or results of operations which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our Class A common stock.”

Nevertheless, Josef Schuster, CEO of financial institution IPOX, describes StubHub as “one of the most closely watched IPOs this year”.

“StubHub’s filing follows on the recent filings of other high-profile deals set to go public soon, including CoreWeave and Klarna,” he tells Reuters. “This indicates a recovering US IPO market with owners seeing a window of opportunity to go public.”

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Ticketmaster has issued a warning over fraudulent ticket sellers falsely claiming to represent the company.

It said a Dublin-based fake ticket seller is promising fans advance tickets and/or tickets for last-minute collection from the venue on show night that do not exist.

“Unfortunately, some fans have already lost large sums of money to this individual,” the company said in a statement, also signed by 3Arena, Aviva Stadium, Croke Park, FAI, IRFU, MCD Production and Festival Republic.

Ticketmaster is calling on “all concert, sporting, theatre and festival goers to be extra vigilant for fraudulent ticket sellers falsely claiming to represent the authorised ticket agent (Ticketmaster)”.

It says it’s working with An Garda Siochána (the national police and security service of Ireland), adding that enhanced security and ticket verification arrangements are being implemented for all forthcoming events.

The statement has also been signed by 3Arena, Aviva Stadium, Croke Park, FAI, IRFU, MCD Production and Festival Republic

Anyone who has bought fake tickets as a result of the situation or who has any information about it is encouraged to report it to Gardaí.

A similar warning about ticket fraud was issued earlier this year by The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The police said that individuals had lost hundreds of pounds after paying for what they believed to be genuine Oasis and Coldplay tickets from third-party retailers.

PSNI described ticket fraud as “a continuing problem” and that “fraudsters will try everything to lure people into falling for their scams”.

Almost £300,000 was lost to ticket fraud in Northern Ireland in 2023. Data from Action Fraud showed £6.7m was lost to ticket fraud across the UK in the same year.

In an effort to discourage people from buying tickets listed on secondary platforms, Oasis announced that thousands of tickets sold on resale websites will be cancelled ahead of their upcoming reunion tour.

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UK culture minister Chris Bryant set out the government’s priorities for the music industry in an appearance at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC).

The MP welcomed delegates to kick off the 37th edition of the gathering, which is being held this week at London’s Royal Lancaster. Bryant began his address with a message aimed at overseas visitors.

“If there’s anybody here who has a contact with anybody in a European government, could you just please tell them it is absolute nonsense that British artists can’t tour effectively across the whole of the European Union,” he said. “It’s not just that you’re losing out on amazing British artists, it’s also that some music festivals in Europe really need those British artists to be able to flourish. And so if you could have a word with your governments, I’d be really, really grateful.”

In the wake of Labour’s election victory last summer, Bryant explained that he was tasked with devising a 10-point plan for music by the government.

“It’s already a 27-point plan, which I hope we’ll be able to publish in June,” he said. “We want to make sure that every single child in every single school in this country has a chance to play a musical instrument, has a chance to act or take part in drama or in dance, or has a chance to paint or sculpt and exercise their artistic self-expression. And we also want to make sure that there’s better remuneration for artists.”

“There’s nothing more special than seeing somebody in a tiny venue who then goes on to be an enormous success”

He continued: “One of the reasons that this industry has flourished so phenomenally in recent years is, of course, artists are going back on stage, and I’d like a bit more of a mix. I’m 63, I know it’s difficult to believe! But there are artists who are performing [that are] much older than me. It would be nice if more of the younger artists were able to take those big stages and those big arenas, and part of that is making sure that there’s a proper remuneration for them in the era of streaming, and that’s one of the things we’re working on.”

Just before Christmas 2024, Bryant held a roundtable meeting with senior figures from the UK live business following the government’s plea to the live industry to introduce a voluntary ticket levy to support the grassroots music sector. He offered an update on the subject at ILMC.

“We’ve already said that we’re very keen, as a government, on an arena levy for big arena tickets – a £1 levy that will go to fund smaller music venues around the country, and I hope we’re going to have progress on that soon,” he said. “I’m really hopeful that we’ll be able to do this, because I’ve always believed that music, like all the creative industries, is an ecosystem. You only get the Paul McCartneys and the Elton Johns, if you also have the people right at the start of their career coming on in every single generation.

“There’s nothing more special than seeing somebody in a tiny venue who then goes on to be an enormous success. We want to make sure that we’ve got that mixture of massive venues and small venues where you can have the intimacy of the experience.”

“We’ve got a consultation that’s ongoing on to how to tackle the secondary ticketing market in the UK, and we’re determined to make it fairer for fans”

Bryant also commented on the government’s highly-anticipated consultation into the secondary ticketing market, which launched last month.

“One of the things that has undermined your industry in the UK over the last few years has been the secondary ticket market, where the artist and the venue have said that the ticket is worth £100, and it ends up being sold for £5,000 or £10,000 or £15,000 or whatever,” he said.

“We’ve got a consultation that’s ongoing on to how to tackle the secondary ticketing market in the UK, and we’re determined to make it fairer for fans.”

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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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