The FanFair Alliance has welcomed Prime Minister Theresa May’s “heartening” intervention on the secondary ticketing market.
Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions last week, May said the DCMS would be responding to the Waterson Report on resale “shortly”. The report was published more than nine months ago.
May was responding to Conservative MP Nigel Adams, who is leading the bid to make illegal the misuse of bot technology by ticket touts. “Does the Prime Minister agree that, when tickets to a teenage cancer charity gig by Ed Sheeran are being resold on the Viagogo ticket website for more than £1,000, with none of that money going to the charity… it is unfair and not indicative of a market that works for everyone?” asked Adams. “What will the government do to ensure that genuine fans are not fleeced by ticket touts and rogues?”
The PM replied: “[Adams] is absolutely right to identify circumstances where websites are acting in that way and causing those problems for people who genuinely believe that they are able to buy tickets for what they wish to attend.
“As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 introduced new rules on ticketing and a review of online ticket sales. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will shortly respond to the independent report by Professor Michael Waterson on this issue, but as a government we are looking at the general issue of where markets are not working in the interest of consumers.”
May was responding to Conservative MP Nigel Adams, who queried the resale of tickets at inflated prices on Viagogo for Ed Sheeran’s Royal Albert Hall charity concert.
Adams is leading a bid to make the misuse of bot technology by ticket touts illegal via an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill.
A spokesman for FanFair Alliance, an anti-touting campaign group launched last year by the managers of Arctic Monkeys, One Direction, Mumford & Sons and PJ Harvey, said: “Professor Waterson’s recommendations on secondary ticketing were published over nine months ago, so it was heartening to hear the prime minister state that a DCMS response is now imminent – as well as a wider government resolve to fix markets that are not working in favour of consumers. This is clearly the case with ticket resale.
“Alongside the full enforcement of existing law, like the Consumer Rights Act, the ticketing amendments tabled in the Digital Economy Bill - if they went through - could have a genuinely transformative impact for audiences. It is a market crying out for transparency."
