The Guardian has learned that the resale of tickets for profit will be outlawed under plans to be announced this week, as the government moves ahead with a long-awaited crackdown on brokers and resale platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub.
Ministers were considering allowing brokers – and ordinary consumers – to sell tickets at up to 130% of face value, as part of a consultation process that concluded earlier this year.
However, the Guardian understands that brokers – and ordinary consumers – will no longer be able to charge more than the price at which they first bought the ticket.
The decision comes a week after dozens of world-famous artists including Radiohead, Dua Lipa and Coldplay issued an open petition calling on Keir Starmer to fulfill Labour’s general election manifesto pledge by banning “harmful” brokers.
Under the plans, which could form part of next year’s King’s speech – anyone selling a ticket will not be allowed to charge more than they paid for it.
Resale platforms will be allowed to charge fees on top of that price.
These additional facilities will also be limited, although the scale of service charge limit has not been decided yet.
The law would also regulate social media sites, which resale platforms have claimed would offer unregulated and potentially fraudulent tickets if the law shuts online ticket exchanges out of the market.
Anyone reselling tickets will also be prohibited from offering more tickets than can be purchased under the limit set by the original box office company.
A licensing system for ticket resale companies, one of the options reviewed by the government, will not be adopted.
Resale platforms will be legally liable if sellers using their sites do not comply with the law, which will be enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority.
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In practice, there are question marks about whether sites like Viagogo and StubHub will continue to operate in the UK if they cannot profit from taking a share of the huge mark-ups charged by brokers.
Face value ticket resale sites, such as Twickets and Ticketmaster’s internal exchange system, have emerged in recent years to offer an alternative to for-profit resale platforms.
The Guardian has regularly exposed the commercial practices of the ticket resale industry, including how the UK’s largest brokers are able to make huge sums of money by buying and selling tickets at fans’ expense and then taking advantage of increased demand for those same events.