Scale of Touting, Bots and Fan Harm

The UK Government have announced a landmark decision: ticket resale above face value is to be made illegal, backed by strict limits on service fees and new enforcement powers. After decades of music fans being fleeced by industrial-scale touting, could this be the turning point?

In this special episode, the FanFair Alliance’s Adam Webb (a central figure in the long-running campaign against exploitative secondary ticketing) joins Sean Adams to unpack the announcement, its implications, and what it means for fans, artists, venues, and the future of the live industry.

Webb lays out how the crisis unfolded, with resale platforms enabling huge mark-ups that now cost fans an estimated £112 million a year. They trace the steady pressure that’s been building for years: Trading Standards investigations, CMA interventions, tabloid exposés, Ed Sheeran’s court cases, and sustained evidence-gathering by managers, artists, unions, and campaigners.

Together, Adam and Sean explore the possibilities opened up by this week’s announcement and ask the simple question: what happens when fairness is restored? And will these reforms be delivered quickly enough to stop another cycle of exploitation?

00:00 – The scale of the problem: how industrialised touting took hold
05:10 – Viagogo, StubHub, and the ecosystem that lets abuse thrive
10:45 – The £112 million question: super-touts, bots, and business models
16:20 – Ed Sheeran, prosecutions, and the moment artists pushed back
22:40 – Why enforcement has failed — and what must change
29:15 – Politics, lobbying, and the slow road to reform
36:00 – Fans, consent, and the ethics of the live economy
41:30 – What a fair ticketing future could look like

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Fan-Led Review of Music: Parliamentary Inquiry into Ticketing Reform
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9161/fanled-review-of-music/

Music Fans Voice: Campaigning for Fair Ticketing and Fan Rights
https://musicfansvoice.uk/

Which? – Stop Fleecing Fans: Ending Rip-Off Ticket Resale
https://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/stop-fleecing-fans

Robert Smith: 7,000 Cure Tickets Cancelled on Secondary Sites
https://accessaa.co.uk/robert-smith-says-7000-the-cure-tickets-have-been-cancelled-on-secondary-resale-websites/

FanFair Alliance: Guide to Buying Tickets Safely
https://fanfairalliance.org/resources/

CMA Investigation: Enforcement Action on Secondary Ticketing
https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/secondary-ticketing

STAR: The UK’s Ticketing Standards and Consumer Protection Body
https://www.star.org.uk/

Ed Sheeran’s Legal Battle Against Ticket Touts (BBC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47620979

Your Consumer Protection Rights (Gov.uk)
https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights

Adam Webb – Updates and Advocacy on Ticketing Reform
https://twitter.com/webboideas