​Ticket touts cost music fans an additional £145 million a year, study finds

A new study by YouGov has found that ticket touts are costing music fans in the UK an extra £145 million per year.

The report, commissioned by Virgin Media O2, surveyed more than 2,000 music fans in the UK over the age of 18 and found that ticket touts are “hugely profiting” off of those who purchase tickets to concerts and other live shows.

It also found that almost half of music fans who have recently attended live events are “not confident” that they could identify a ticket resale platform.

Speaking on the survey, O2’s Director Gareth Griffiths says: “We are tired of professional ticket touts abusing the ticket marketplace and stealing tickets out of fans’ hands, only to immediately relist them at inflated prices.”

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“Music fans deserve the chance to buy tickets at a price set by their favourite artist, but all too often they are forced to pay a price decided by a stranger on the internet,” he says. “Consumers deserve more protection and better information about the tickets they’re paying for.”

O2 has now issued a warning to music fans across the UK, calling on resale websites to “be more upfront” with fans and to put support behind the government’s new ticketing reform plans.

The ticketing and events company – which sells more than a million live music tickets a year – also says that over the course of six weeks, it prevented over 5,000 suspected bots from entering O2’s Priority platform.

The study concluded that around one in five tickets end up on a resale platform, and provided advice for those who look to purchase from secondary sites.

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Tips included checking an artist’s social media and websites for official ticket partners and using fan-to-fan resale platforms like Twickets and Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace.

YouGov’s survey follows criticism of “dynamic pricing” systems used by ticketing platforms after some Oasis fans paid a premium for tickets to the band’s 2025 reunion tour on Ticketmaster.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans from having a chance of enjoying their favourite band live”, and promised a commitment from the government to “include issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing”.

Read the full report here.

Gemma Ross is Mixmag’s Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter