When tickets for blockbuster concerts or must-see sporting events go on sale in the United Kingdom, the rush is often followed by a wave of frustration. Within minutes, genuine fans find themselves shut out, while tickets pop up on resale sites at eye-watering prices. But all that is about to change. On November 19, 2025, the UK government is set to announce sweeping new legislation that will make it illegal to resell tickets above their original cost, marking the most significant shake-up in ticketing in decades, according to The Guardian and BBC News.
This move comes after months of public debate, government consultation, and growing pressure from the music industry and consumer advocates. In mid-November, dozens of British artists—including Radiohead, Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, Mogwai, and PJ Harvey—signed an open letter urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to fulfill the Labour Party’s 2024 election pledge to crack down on ticket touting. Their plea was clear: the current system, they argued, is "extortionate and pernicious," locking genuine fans out of the live experiences they love.
Between January and April 2025, the government undertook a secondary ticketing consultation to explore options for reform. While there was talk of capping resale prices at 30% above face value or introducing a licensing system for resale companies, ministers ultimately decided on a more radical approach: a total ban on resale for profit. Under the new rules, no ticket for a concert, theatre show, comedy gig, or sports event may be resold for more than its original price—plus capped, unavoidable service charges.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is expected to unveil the plan officially, with the intention of ending industrial-scale ticket touting. The new laws will not only target traditional secondary ticketing websites like Viagogo and StubHub, but also extend to social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook Marketplace. This means that anyone, whether a company or an individual, will be legally obliged to comply with the new rules when reselling tickets to UK fans. If you bought four tickets—the maximum allowed for an event—you’ll only be able to resell those four, and no more.
The crackdown is designed to help fans in more ways than one. According to research by the campaign group Let’s Stamp it Tout (backed by Virgin Media O2), ticket touting costs UK consumers £145 million every year. Government analysis suggests the new measures will reduce the average price of a resale ticket by £37 ($48), collectively saving fans about £112 million ($137 million) annually. Around 900,000 more tickets are expected to be bought directly from primary sellers each year as a result, restoring some faith in the system and improving access for genuine fans.
Of course, the scale of the problem has become impossible to ignore. Recent headline-grabbing events such as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the Oasis reunion have seen resale prices soar to thousands of pounds—sometimes up to six times the original cost, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The backlash was so intense that the CMA launched an investigation into Ticketmaster’s compliance with consumer protection law and secured a commitment from Ticketmaster to improve pricing transparency. The company now promises to give fans 24 hours’ notice of tiered pricing, provide clearer information during online queues, and end misleading ticket labeling.
Resale platforms will face new and serious responsibilities. The CMA will have the power to levy financial penalties of up to 10% of a company’s global turnover if they fail to enforce the law. StubHub Holdings, the parent company of Viagogo, saw its shares tumble more than 14% in New York trading after the news broke, a sign of the legislation’s potential impact on the lucrative secondary ticketing industry. Companies like Viagogo and StubHub, which have long profited from inflated resale fees, will now be legally liable if users flout the rules. While they will still be allowed to add service charges to face-value exchanges, these fees will be strictly capped to prevent the new price limit from being undermined.
Not everyone is cheering the government’s move. Critics warn that banning above-face-value resale could simply push transactions into the shadows, increasing the risk of fraud. A spokesperson for StubHub cautioned, "With a price cap on regulated marketplaces, ticket transactions will move to black markets." Viagogo echoed the warning, stating, "Evidence shows price caps have repeatedly failed fans, in countries like Ireland and Australia fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites." Their solution? "Open distribution," where primary platforms such as Ticketmaster connect directly with resale platforms to verify tickets and combat fraud and bot activity.
Campaign group FairTicketing has also voiced concerns, arguing that the new laws could have unintended consequences. They warn that capping resale prices might simply encourage primary sellers to rely more heavily on dynamic pricing—where the face value of a ticket fluctuates with demand. "Far from curbing exploitation, this has simply shifted the burden onto fans at the point of initial sale," said chairman Stephen Lee. "While we applaud efforts to tackle bad actors and bot-driven exploitation, we firmly believe that imposing a price cap would do more harm than good, exacerbating the very problems it aims to solve and undermining the benefits that a regulated secondary market provides to fans."
Dynamic pricing, a model already used by Ticketmaster and others, will remain unaffected by the new rules. That means ticket prices for high-demand events can still skyrocket at the initial point of sale, although companies will be required to be more upfront about how prices are set. The Royal Ballet and Opera, for example, recently announced plans to introduce demand-led pricing to maximize revenue. While this doesn’t address the core issue of affordability, it does at least add a layer of transparency for buyers.
Not all resale platforms are opposed to the changes. Twickets, a site championed by artists like Ed Sheeran for only allowing face-value sales, described the proposals as a "landmark moment for consumer protection in live entertainment." Founder Richard Davies said, "For too long, fans have been exploited by industrial-scale touting that drives up prices, damages trust and locks genuine supporters out of the events they love." Live Nation and Ticketmaster have also thrown their support behind the new laws, with Ticketmaster already limiting resale prices to face value in the UK market.
Despite the broad support from artists, fans, and some industry insiders, the legislation still needs to pass through the House of Commons before taking effect. If approved, it will mark a decisive step in the fight against ticket touting, potentially transforming the live events landscape for millions of UK fans. For now, the message from government and campaigners is clear: the days of industrial-scale profiteering from fans’ passion for music, theatre, and sport may finally be numbered.
