UK watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said for the first time that it would back a price cap on the resale of events tickets.
Dealing a blow to touts who use secondary ticketing sites such as Viagogo and StubHub to make significant profits on tickets for gigs and other events, the CMA said in a submission to a consultation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that a cap would “protect consumers from excessive resale pricing” if it was properly enforced.
A price cap of up to 10 percent above face value on resold tickets was included among Labour’s election pledges last year before the party came to power, in a response to anger among music fans trying to buy tickets for popular tours by acts like Oasis and Taylor Swift. With the CMA, which is a non-ministerial government department responsible for promoting competitive markets and curbing unfair behaviour, now throwing its support behind such a cap, Labour is one step closer to making its pledge a reality.
In its submission to the DCMS, the consumer watchdog accepted that the secondary ticketing market was still beleaguered by practices hurting normal consumers, such as the bulk-buying of tickets explicitly for the purpose of selling on at significant profit margins. These are practices, the CMA said, that existing consumer laws aren’t going far enough to cut out.
However, it won’t be easy to enforce a hardline cap on resale prices, the CMA warned. The government would have to take strict action against people who break the rules, including by selling tickets on social media, in order to eliminate touting and essentially scare people off indulging in the practice themselves.
It also stressed that there was a danger of resale sites like Viagogo and StubHub simply increasing booking fees to compensate for lost profits. Measures within law would need to be fleshed out in order to stop them from doing this, the CMA said.
