An end to price gouging by Viagogo and StubHub?!

[Al Krow]

Personally delighted that the Govt are introducing this reform: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/nov/17/reselling-tickets-for-profit-to-be-outlawed-in-uk-government-crackdown

 

Great news for those of us wanting to see live music having saved up for the actual face value ticket price (although these can be eye-watering!) and not some ridiculous rip-off figure.

The only remaining fly in the ointment is the continued ability of the online platforms to charge a "service fee", but hopefully this will also be capped to a reasonable amount.

[pete.young]

Dynamic pricing?

[Rich]

And about bloody time too.

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, pete.young said:

Dynamic pricing?

 

Should also hopefully now be history. Can only resell at face value, plus service fee. 

[Al Krow]

9 hours ago, Rich said:

And about bloody time too.

 

100% agreed!

Edited Tuesday at 20:05 by Al Krow

[fretmeister]

The admin fees are now going to be £100 per ticket.

 

Cynical? Moi?

[BigRedX]

I've just been looking at getting a ticket to see Cabaret Voltaire at Rock City next year.

 

The face value ticket price is £35.00

On top of that is £5.88 booking fee and a £1.50 E-Ticket charge bringing the total price up to £42.38, and this is from Rock City's own web site. If you want to buy them from any of the other ticket sites it's even more expensive.

 

It used to be possible to bypass these fees by going in person to the Rock City box office. I'm in town for a client meeting tomorrow so I'll go and have a look to see if this is still the case.

 

IMO if there is no way of avoiding these additional charges then they should not be additional and be part of the actual face value ticket price. And if they can be avoided by buying in person rather than on-line then this information should be made available at the time of purchase. I suspect that there is some creative accounting reason why they are additional.

[Mykesbass]

38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Should also hopefully now be history. Can only resell at face value, plus service fee. 

But wasn't the issue with Oasis tickets that there was no face value from the original seller and it fluctuated with demand?

[uk_lefty]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

I've just been looking at getting a ticket to see Cabaret Voltaire at Rock City next year.

 

The face value ticket price is £35.00

On top of that is £5.88 booking fee and a £1.50 E-Ticket charge bringing the total price up to £42.38, and this is from Rock City's own web site. If you want to buy them from any of the other ticket sites it's even more expensive.

 

It used to be possible to bypass these fees by going in person to the Rock City box office. I'm in town for a client meeting tomorrow so I'll go and have a look to see if this is still the case.

 

IMO if there is no way of avoiding these additional charges then they should not be additional and be part of the actual face value ticket price. And if they can be avoided by buying in person rather than on-line then this information should be made available at the time of purchase. I suspect that there is some creative accounting reason why they are additional.

I'm stuck on these... On one hand it's good to see the breakdown so you know (to a degree) where your money is going, but as you say if you can't actually remove any of those additional fees then it all just seems pointless.

[Kev]

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

Should also hopefully now be history. Can only resell at face value, plus service fee. 

 

How does this impact on Dynamic Pricing?  This appears to only apply to resale, whereas Dynamic Pricing is where the real gouging happens.

[Al Krow]

6 hours ago, pete.young said:

Dynamic pricing?

 

1 hour ago, Kev said:

 

How does this impact on Dynamic Pricing?  This appears to only apply to resale, whereas Dynamic Pricing is where the real gouging happens.

 

Yeah fair about dynamic pricing, still being possible.

 

"Ticketmaster faced intense scrutiny and hundreds of consumer complaints after the prices for both the 2024 Oasis and 2023 Bruce Springsteen tours soared dramatically with high demand, leading to accusations of price gouging. Resulted in a Competition and Markets Authority  investigation. While the CMA did not find evidence of real-time algorithmic "dynamic pricing" in the Oasis case, it did find concerns regarding a lack of transparency about different price tiers and that consumers were not given clear information, which may have breached consumer protection law."

 

I guess at the end of the day folk can't stop sellers selling tickets at whatever prices people are willing to pay. Same goes for anything that shoots up in value e.g. some bass pedals right? But at least these tickets are being sold to someone who actually wants them - will now be illegal for touts and commercial resale sites to scoop up thousands of tickets purely for resale at massive margins.

 

And, sure, I appreciate that it's also illegal to sell cocaine and that doesn't stop the equivalent of ticket touts pushing drugs, so the resale of tickets may simply go underground? But I guess the argument goes if coke were legal, take up would be massively higher i.e. making it illegal reduces the supply and demand?

[tauzero]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

100%!!

 

Is that the service fee?

[Al Krow]

2 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Is that the service fee?

 

Haha - no, simply meant I agree 100% with Rich! I'll edit to avoid any confusion!

[TimR]

The artists will have to decide which sellers will give them the best price for acting as ticket agent. 

 

Otherwise there won't be any ticket agencies. 

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, TimR said:

The artists will have to decide which sellers will give them the best price for acting as ticket agent. 

 

Otherwise there won't be any ticket agencies. 

 

How so..? Do these agents deal solely in entertainment tickets..? What about transport ('plane, train, bus...)..? Museums, stately homes or monuments..? Holiday camps, camp sites..? Plenty of stuff to be sold apart from rock concerts, Shirley..? 

[Downunderwonder]

9 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

How so..? Do these agents deal solely in entertainment tickets..? What about transport ('plane, train, bus...)..? Museums, stately homes or monuments..? Holiday camps, camp sites..? Plenty of stuff to be sold apart from rock concerts, Shirley..? 

Who cares about businesses that made millions off the backs of artists and their fans by turning scalping into a web operation?

 

Agents will do fine enough selling tickets. Resellers will do fine enough out of genuine reselling. All the excitement is for no longer being reamed when the only way to buy a 50 quid ticket is pay 150 quid.

[SteveXFR]

I stopped going to anything where Ticketweb/Ticketmaster/Live Nation are involved. They just absolutely fleece the fans by charging huge amounts on top of the ticket prices while adding zero value.

In the bright side, Ive seen loads of bands at the start of their career and realised their energy and enthusiasm on stage makes for a much better performance than the dinosaurs I used to see. I go to a decent size festival once a year so still see a few bigger bands but pay £200 for three days of great music instead of £150 for a few hours at a Live Nation show