Ticket scalping is about to be illegal in the UK. As The Guardian reports, today the British government proposed a new law that will outlaw selling tickets for concerts or sporting events at a profit. Artists like Radiohead, Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, and Mogwai recently signed an open letter encouraging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ban ticket resales above face value. The government has now proposed that plan, and lawmakers are widely expected to approve it.
Business Department minister Kate Dearden tells The Guardian that the decision was a “no-brainer” and that “we all know someone who’s been ripped off.” The Competition and Markets Authority will oversee the ban and hold electronic resellers “liable for penalties of up to 10% of turnover,” which could result in some very large fines.
According to The New York Times, a government news release claims that the new law will reduce the average resold ticket by £37, or about $49, and it’ll save consumers £112 million, or $147 million, per year. It must be nice to live in a country where the government has even a passing interest in preventing its citizens from being scammed and gouged in a million ways every day.
