24 November 2025
Government Cracks Down on Ticket Touting
On 19 November 2025, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced plans to make it illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport, and other live events to be resold for more than their original face value.
The proposed new laws are in response to a DCMS consultation (which ran between 10 January 2025 and 4 April 2025) on the resale of live events tickets.
The new laws will form part of the government's national renewal policy, aimed at “creating fairer systems”, and improving access for genuine fans when tickets originally go on sale. In particular, the new rules are part of the government's commitment to “clamping down on ticket touting” - the buying of tickets for events and then reselling them, often at a significantly higher price than the original face value.
So, what are the new rules?
The resale of tickets above face value will be illegal (“face value” being defined as the original ticket price, plus unavoidable fees, including service charges);
A cap on service fees charged by resale platforms to prevent the price limit being undermined;
A legal duty on resale platforms to monitor and enforce compliance with the price cap; and
Banning of individuals from reselling more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the initial ticket sale.
Ticket touting has become increasingly problematic over recent years, and the methods used by touts have grown in sophistication. Touts (sometimes referred to as scalpers in other markets) buy large volumes of tickets online and then list them on resale platforms at hugely inflated prices, exploiting demand and possibly restricting purchases by genuine fans.
According to an analysis by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), typical mark-ups on secondary market tickets can exceed 50%.1 Trading Standards further uncovered evidence of tickets being resold for up to six times their face value.2
These rules will apply to any platform reselling tickets to UK fans; this includes secondary ticketing platforms and social media websites. Those platforms who breach the new regulations could be subject to the CMA's new enforcement powers introduced by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, such as imposing significant financial penalties of up to 10% of global turnover of the business (or of its group) (section 86(4)(a).
Government analysis suggests that these new rules could save fans approximately GBP112 million annually, with 900,000 more tickets bought directly from primary sellers each year and a reduction of GBP37 of the average price paid for tickets. The announcement of these new rules follows Ticketmaster's commitment to improving pricing information,3 following criticism of the “dynamic pricing” model (whereby pricing is dictated by fluctuations in demand) used as part of the ticket sales process for the Oasis world tour.
The press release states that the government will introduce the legislation when Parliamentary time allows. With Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, stating the government will bring forward their new legislative session in the King's Speech which has been delayed to the beginning of 2026. Once the Bill becomes public, it will be interesting to see how it addresses special categories of tickets that event organisers would prefer not to cap, such as debentures, hospitality and travel packages and charity places.
The new rules mark a decisive step towards tackling ticket touting and aiming to restore fairness in consumer access to the live events market. By capping resale prices, limiting service fees and imposing compliance duties on platforms, the measures aim to protect genuine fans and ensure affordable access to live events.
1Competition and Markets Authority, ‘Completed acquisition by PUG LLC (viagogo) of the StubHub business of eBay Inc: Final report’ 2021. Page 131
2National Trading Standards, ‘Ticket tout family guilty of online ticket fraud’ 2024
3Competition and Markets Authority, 'CMA secures changes from Ticketmaster following Oasis tickets investigation' 2025