By james art Labor MP Jack Abbott said the crackdown on digital ticket advertising was “about fairness”.
Sum 41 fan Emma Foudy, the Labor MP who brought the debate to Westminster Hall on Thursday, suggested fines or bans for websites that host ticket ads that buy tickets in bulk and sell them at a much higher price than their face value value.
Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant promised “change” in a bid to “get to a place where face value is face value and other people aren’t racketeering off the back of that”.
Mr Abbott said: “I can’t help but wonder if Suffolk’s next Ed Sheeran will also be denied his chance to shine.”
The MP for Ipswich, in Sheeran’s home constituency, added a resolution to the resale of tickets “for fairness and to protect consumers and fans”.
He said: “It is high time we faced these challenges.”
Mrs Foodie, MP for Cramlington and Killingworth, said: “Growing up, me and my friends saved our pocket money or our paper money.
“We used to queue at local music shops like Pet Sounds (in Newcastle upon Tyne) to get tickets for concerts at local universities in general.”
She added that fans “experience a real sense of injustice at the scale of secondary ticketing platforms” and called for greater transparency which could “play a key role in educating consumers about the risks of ticketing”.
Ms Foodie asked Sir Chris: “Where there are websites that continually exploit fans, can the use of fines and the complete removal of websites be considered to strengthen the protection of fans?”
Marie Goldman, Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, said she became sick of online ticket ads in 2012 when tickets she bought for Sting at the Hammersmith Apollo were duplicated and used by someone else.
Turning to sport, she added: “A lot of people say, ‘well, it’s all just supply and demand’ from the point of view of ‘well, if the tickets cost that much, then people wouldn’t pay if the tickets weren’t worth 20 times the face value “.
“But there’s actually a very good reason why a lot of sports activities want to keep prices low, and that’s because they want to keep the fans and players of the future in kid form, coming along with their parents and developing a love of the game.”
Conservative shadow culture minister Luke Evans pressed Sir Chris on when his government would launch a consultation on potential rule changes.
“I am asking the Minister not to look back in anger on the last government, after all the Conservatives were ‘caught in a landslide’ by Labour’s champagne supernova.
“And he is the government. And his government must get this right,” he told MPs.
Dr Evans also asked for more information on the scope of the future consultation, including whether it would look at “the role of search engines driving customers to advertising customers, which is a problem”.
Sir Chris replied: “Eventually we have to get to a place where face value is face value and other people aren’t racketeering off the back of that.”
He said his department had looked at resale ticket prices for several events, including an Olivia Rodrigo concert in Manchester next July, where a £50 ticket was listed for £2,573 on one resale website, a 5,046% increase.
“One key issue that we will need to make sure we get right when and if we propose legislation in this area is the enforcement aspect because there is no point in proposing new laws if you can’t enforce them,” said sir chris
“The more the prosecution authorities feel able to act in this area, the better.”
“If they want to come to me and say we don’t have the powers that we need or we don’t have the resources that we need, then I’m happy to hear that and then we can act on that.”
On the timing of the consultation, the minister promised an exercise “soon” and added: “I would just say to all the people I mentioned, Gigsberg and Viagogo and StubHub and all the others and Ticketmaster and so on, change is coming so you have to start prepare for it.