UK moves to regulate secondary ticketing stalls

The UK Parliament has cancelled ticket touting select committee inquiry ahead of the snap General Election. Ongoing inquiries instigated by Parliament's Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee on ticket touting and the effect of Brexit on the creative industries, tourism and the Digital Single Market have also been put on hold. Chair of the committee, Damian Collins, said in a statement: "Although we are unable to complete these important inquiries, there is no bar to our successors in the next Parliament taking up the evidence received - which has been published on the committee's website - and finishing them. Given the importance of all these subjects, we hope that the new committee will do so".

In other ticketing news, Live Nation boss Michael Rapino has said that he doesn't think efforts to legislate against secondary ticketing will have much effect, saying that the industry should focus on pricing and technology issue. through its Ticketmaster business, LNE owns secondary ticketing platforms like Seatwave and Get Me In. "As long as the [ticketing] market's gigantic, you'll have sophisticated players trying to figure out how to monetise it", Rapino said at the Canadian Music Week conference "My instincts are always on the free market" adding "I just think [efforts to legislate against touting are] so unrealistic. I think some of these [efforts] are decent attempts, but I don't think overall, until you start pricing the product better, and/or have better technology to deliver the fan their ticket, that you'll start to make a difference. We're the only industry in the world that has a higher retail value the second it's sold".