Preventing ticket touts: Who is the onus on, artists or the government?
Some of the biggest names in British music have recently signed an open letter calling for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to tackle issues surrounding ticket bots, reselling, and the secondary ticketing market in general, a problem that has plagued the music industry for years now.
The cost of living is high, money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and thanks to these ticketing scams of having to pay double because of bots getting there first, art is becoming less and less accessible. It’s sad to see, given live music isn’t just a luxury, but something that can help both artists and punters in their everyday lives, hence the question becomes who to turn to to counteract this menace.
In an open letter, the artists have asked for the government’s help “fix elements of the extortionate and pernicious secondary ticketing market that serve the interests of touts, whose exploitative practices are preventing genuine fans from accessing the music, theatre and sports they love”.
The solution proposed was simple: a cap on the amount that a ticket can be resold for, as if bots can’t make profits from the tickets they purchase, they would likely stop trying to sell them. “Introducing a cap will restore faith in the ticketing system,” the letter read, “help democratise public access to the arts in line with the government’s agenda and make it easier for fans to spot illegal behaviour, such as ticketing fraud.”
It continued, “For too long, certain resale platforms have allowed touts to bulk buy and then resell tickets at inflated prices, forcing fans to either pay above the odds or miss out entirely. This erodes trust in the live events sector and undermines the efforts of artists and organisers to make shows accessible and affordable.”
These complaints don’t come out of the blue, since, for years now, fans have been growing frustrated with the music industry’s seeming inability to stop bot farms and scammers from buying tickets on general sale and reselling them at huge margins. There have been plenty of instances of this recently, but one of the most famous was the Oasis reunion tour, which prompted the government to take action and speak out earlier in the year.
They confirmed that they intended to do something to stop the unlawful resale of tickets, where, in January 2025, Lisa Nandy, the UK’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said she would be leading an initiative that would end the exploitative culture surrounding ticket resales, which encourages people to resell for huge profit margins.
When this initiative was originally announced, the music industry campaign group, FanFair Alliance, called for the government to pass legislation which would make ticket touting illegal. “One thing that can truly stop touts in their tracks is legislation,” they said, “It’s time to bring in laws to protect fans and live music.”
In similar news, Hayley Williams announced, alongside her tour dates, that she was setting up a new ticketing system designed to prevent ticket touts, which would require fans to register their interest for tickets within 24 hours of the tour being announced, and in order to do this, they would need to provide an email address and phone number to validate that they were human.
Williams said, “It feels like the right time to let you know… I’m on tour. And I want to get tickets into the hands of my fans, at a price that is as reasonable as I could get”, and for this she will be using a platform called Openstage, which is a solid line of defence but not a faultless system.
“During the Oasis Live ‘25 dates in the UK, only 0.5% of Unlock allocations reached resale markets, compared to over 9% of tickets from the general sale,” explained Chief Product Officer for Openstage, Rob Abelow, “Proof that the best way to stop bots and reward real fans is to make every fan come through the artist’s own front door.”
It begs the question, who is responsible for stopping ticket touts, the government or the artists selling the tickets? Both can have an impact on how bot farms and scammers work, but who should the brunt of responsibility fall onto when it comes to fans getting ripped off?
The solution lies in harmony
Not to sound like too much of a hippy, but the solution lies in both artists and the government working in unison with one another. As Williams and Openstage show, artists are able to provide a solid safeguard, but it isn’t one that stops ticket touts altogether, as while 0.5% of them getting through is a significant improvement, and there’s no denying that, it isn’t all of them.
That being said, if you pair such defence with caps on the price that tickets can be resold at, you create a system that makes it incredibly difficult for people to take advantage of. Artists and the government need to work together on these restrictions in a bid to ensure that music remains accessible to those who need it.
The primary people who suffer at the hands of ticket touts are the general public. People are already struggling, and something as simple as live music can help provide an escape from the hardships of everyday life, wherein the power that music has to improve people’s lives can never be understated. It has always been used as a form of hope, joy, and determination, and, as such, access to it is owed to people; it shouldn’t be something they have to compromise their quality of life over.
Ozzy Osbourne put it best when he spoke about how The Beatles improved people’s lives who were growing up in post-war Britain. “When I heard The Beatles. I knew what I wanted to do,” said Osbourne when discussing one of his favourite bands, “My son says to me, ‘Dad, I like The Beatles, but why do you go so crazy? The only way I can describe it, is like this, ‘Imagine you go to bed today and the world is black and white, and then you wake up, and everything’s in colour. That’s what it was like!’ That’s the profound effect it had on me.”
The public should have access to live music, and artists and the government should work together to ensure that they do: it’s as black and white as that.
