The UK government has moved to ban the increased resale of tickets for entertainment and sporting events.
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as it happens6:31The UK government has moved to ban the increased resale of tickets for entertainment and sporting events.
whether you are competition for seats Toronto Blue Jays playoff game or frantically refresh screen for one shot In Taylor Swift’s blockbuster eras tour, the heartache has become all too familiar: Tickets disappear within minutes, only to reappear on resale sites for far more than their original price.
But the UK government is moving towards banning reselling, depriving fans of seeing their favorite artists and teams. The proposed legislation, announced Wednesday, would make it illegal to resell tickets for concerts, theater, comedy, sports and other live events at more than their original face value.
“For too long, ticket (scalpers) have defrauded fans, using bots to snap up batches of tickets and resell them at exorbitant prices,” British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy said in a statement.
The move follows a call by musicians last Thursday, where artists including Coldplay, Dua Lipa and Radiohead urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to crack down on “extortionate and harmful” websites reselling concert tickets.
According to the UK government, these measures could save fans there approximately £112 million ($206 million) annually and result in more than 900,000 tickets being purchased directly from primary sellers each year.