If you’ve ever been to a gig, then you are probably familiar with this- your favourite band just released a new album and announced that they’re going on tour. Great! Hey, they’re playing a show in your city, even better! Then you remember, oh god, I have to go through the ordeal of Ticketmaster. So you log in and set an alarm so you get there right as they go on sale, and despite your best efforts, you’re already in a queue of thousands of people, and when you get to the front, all that’s left are expensive resales.
Well, not anymore. The government has just implemented a ban on reselling tickets for all live events at a higher price than their original value. This means tickets resold above face value will be illegal, service charges will be capped, and tickets will be sold at a limit of four per buyer, to combat the rise in bots purchasing large quantities of tickets for an event to resell them at a highly inflated price. According to the government announcement, this will lower resale prices by an average of £37 and collectively save fans around £112 million annually.
While this ban is great news for the buyer, this is only the first step that the government can take in order to aid the country’s music industry. There needs to be more done to preserve the music culture that has formed the backbone of the British entertainment economy for decades. With an average of two grassroots music venues closing down per month since the COVID pandemic, the next focus should ideally be on providing funding for surviving grassroots venues and music shops.
Implementing a ban on expensive ticket resales was one of the Labour government’s election pledges, so does the fact that they’ve stuck to their word suggest a move towards a more consumer-friendly government? Ideally, they should also be looking at the possibility of capping the cost of things like train tickets, where their unaffordability affects significantly more people daily. Similarly, the student loan increase and cuts in funding to PGCE courses contradict the notion that they have our best financial interests at heart, and really, they should be focusing on improving the cost of living across all areas, not just in the entertainment industry.
The ban, at surface level, feels like long overdue, common sense, but surely the next step would be to eliminate third-party ticket vendors. With Ticketmaster currently taking 20% of the money made from ticket sales (money which should be going towards the artists) and the live music venues still struggling to return to pre-COVID rates of sales, the UK’s music industry would benefit from the support of a government that is truly willing to invest in it.
Fundamentally, the ban represents the sense of hope that we all had when Labour initially got in. While they undeniably could (and should) be doing more, it suggests that the government at least somewhat acknowledges the value of the entertainment industry. Most importantly, it shows that they are willing to make the necessary changes to stop the exploitation of the fans, who are ultimately what keep the music industry rolling.
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