EU Parliament Votes In Favour Of New Legislation Against Ticket Scalping

Promising news has arrived in the fight against scalpers today: the EU parliament have voted in favour of new legislation that will ban the use of bots in ticket purchasing.

The move is the EU's first ever action against the scalping epidemic – a widespread issue that the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden have had to comment on of late, the former even discovering that their 20th anniversary S&M shows had fallen victim to bots and scalpers last month.

"Everyone apart from touts lose out from bot bulk buying of tickets; real fans either are unable to see their favourite team or artist or forced to pay many times the face value price, whilst event organisers are seeing their purchasing limits flagrantly violated," says Daniel Dalton MEP. "So this first ever ban at a European level is an important first step, with the possibility to go further in future depending on how the ban works in practice."

Sharon Hodgson MP – Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West and Chair of the APPG on Ticket Abuse – adds: “It is welcome that the EU Parliament have today voted to ban bots, which harvest tickets from the primary market in order to sell for high profits on the secondary market. This new regulation harmonises Europe with existing UK law on bots, and also allows member states to strengthen existing legislation, which will protect consumers. Fans across the world must not be priced out by the secondary ticket market using parasitical methods to get tickets.”

This year, a study on these ticket scalping methods revealed that as much as 42.2 per cent of activity on primary platforms can be attributed to bots, compared to 56.9 per cent human activity – an increase from 2018 of 12.3 per cent. And as technology continues to improve, these stats could potentially even get worse.

For more information on the new legislation, and to check out the work that non-profit organisation Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT) do, head on over to this link.

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