UK Parliament / Open data

Secondary ticketing market

Commons Debate pack by Allwell Uwazuruike, Lorraine Conway, Maria Lalic and Harriet Samuel. It was first published on Thursday, 17 October 2024. It was last updated on Friday, 18 October 2024.

There is a Library briefing on Ticket resales (CBP 4715) (PDF, 21 October 2024).

In the secondary market, tickets for live recreational, sporting, or cultural events are resold after their original sale, often (but not always) at prices other than their original ‘face value’. The online resale of tickets is regulated by consumer protection legislation. Specifically, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA 2015), the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (the Unfair Trading Regulations), and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (the CCRs). The new Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also contains provisions (not yet in force) to strengthen the CRA 2015 in relation to secondary ticketing by permitting the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to act as an enforcement authority in relation to existing enforcement powers.

The Digital Economy Act 2017, which received Royal Assent on 27 April 2017, is also relevant. Regarding secondary ticketing, it:

criminalises the use of bots to purchase tickets in excess of a maximum number,
puts the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Direct Marketing Guidance (PDF) (5 December 2022) on a statutory footing,
and requires sellers to provide any unique ticket number that may help the buyer to identify the seat or standing area or its location.

There have been several investigations of the secondary ticketing market, especially its pricing practices. Notably, Professor Waterson’s independent report on the effectiveness of consumer protection measures in the secondary ticketing market, published in May 2016. The Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee have also held two one-off evidence sessions into ticket abuse. The first session took place on 15 November 2016 and considered the problem of software being used to harvest tickets from primary sellers. The second session was held on 21 March 2017.

In 2018, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media, acted against four secondary ticketing websites in respect of misleading presentation of pricing information. Separately, in June 2016, the CMA began a compliance review of the secondary ticketing market. In December 2016, the CMA conducted a formal investigation into suspected breaches of consumer protection law culminating in enforcement action in November 2017 against four secondary ticketing websites.

On 16 August 2021, the CMA published Secondary ticketing: Recommendations to government for improving consumer protection (PDF), which included the recommendation that all secondary ticketing sites acquire a licence to operate in the UK. In its formal response to the CMA recommendations (10 May 2023), the government said it was “too soon to conclude that the only way forward was further legislation focused on this market”. More recently, on 5 October 2024, the CMA opened an investigation into the sale of Oasis concert tickets by Ticketmaster in the primary market, including the use of ‘dynamic pricing’.

The Labour government made a manifesto commitment to introduce new consumer protections on ticket resales, to “put fans back at the heart of events”. In September 2024, the government confirmed a consultation would be launched in the autumn to consider a range of options, including revisiting recommendations from the CMA’s 2021 report.