UK to ban the resale of tickets for profit to protect fans

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain said on Wednesday it would ban the resale of tickets to concerts, sport and other live events for profit, disrupting ticket touts and the platforms that benefit from their activities.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said touts were ripping off fans by using bots to snap up batches of tickets for coveted shows and reselling them at sky-high prices.

"Our new proposals will shut down the touts' racket and make world-class music, comedy, theatre and sport affordable for everyone," she said, after the government had promised action.

Tickets for tours by Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Oasis and others have been offered on resale sites for hugely inflated prices minutes after they sell out.

Touts use sophisticated automated "bots" to beat online queues, the government said.

Shares in U.S. company StubHub, the owner of resale site Viagogo, fell 14% on Monday after the plan was reported.

The government had consulted on setting a cap of up to 30% above face value for the resale of tickets.

But it said on Wednesday that resales above face value - defined as original ticket price plus unavoidable fees - would be illegal.

Service fees charged by platforms will also be capped to prevent the ban being undermined, it said.

The new rules will apply to any platform reselling tickets to UK fans, including secondary ticketing platforms and social media websites, it said. Businesses who break the regulations could face financial penalties of up to 10% of global turnover.

Viagogo said on Tuesday that processes to verify tickets would be a more effective way to stop illegal activity.

"Evidence shows price caps have repeatedly failed fans. In countries like Ireland and Australia, fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites," a Viagogo spokesperson said.

"Opening the market to greater competition also helps drive prices down, benefiting fans."

(Reporting by Paul Sandle;Editing by Alison Williams)