UK Music chief Michael Dugher has welcomed new secondary ticketing provisions which come into force today.
The measures require ticket resellers to provide any unique ticket numbers (UTN) to the buyer to identify a ticket’s seat, standing area or location, and are being introduced in a bid to clamp down on the excesses of the resale market.
Campaigner Claire Turnham set up the Victim of Viagogo group on Facebook after being charged £1,150 for an Ed Sheeran ticket from a secondary site. Viagogo was recently fined €1 million (£714,000) by Italy's antitrust agency AGCM after it was found to have misled customers by not making the original ticket price as well as their allocated seats transparent.
UK Music CEO Dugher (pictured) said: "I’m glad the Government has listened to calls from UK Music and industry campaigners including the FanFair Alliance for action.
“These new measures are a positive step from the Government to ensuing transparency in the resale market. They now need to be actively monitored and enforced to ensure compliance with the law to protect music fans from being screwed over by sites offering tickets at vastly inflated prices.
“Google has a role to play here too. It is deeply worrying that the much hyped changes to their advertising policies are still allowing Viagogo to appear at the top of search results despite the site not disclosing the face value of tickets up for resale. Google needs to up its game and kick secondary sites that flout the law into touch.”
Last month, Culture Secretary Matt Hancock signed legal orders for legislation that bans touts from using bots to bulk buy tickets.
Measures against touts selling tickets at vastly inflated prices were included in the Digital Economy Bill last year.
There have been additional steps against resale sites by the Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), while Google has announced resale regulations.
Read Music Week's report on the last 12 months in secondary ticketing here.
