Is this the moment Britain finally ends the rip-off ticket touting that has bled music fans dry for years?

It has set out bold action to cap the amount a ticket can be resold for to its original cost, making it illegal to resell tickets for more than face value.

After campaigning for a fairer ticketing market for more than eight years through our work as part of the FanFair Alliance, this proposed action has been a long time in the making.

It’s a victory for live music fans everywhere, and today we’re celebrating alongside them.

Music is a part of O2's DNA. Our Priority Tickets platform - which offers our customers presale tickets to thousands of live shows across the country - selling more than 1.5 million tickets in 2024, and through our sponsorship of 20 O2 venues up and down the UK we play a vital role in the live music ecosystem.

We do this because we want to give our customers access to the best experiences – experiences we know they love – and to put tickets into the hands of real music fans so they can have a night they’ll never forget.

But for far too long, the professional ticket touting industry has run counter to this goal. What started out as a few sellers on the street on the night of a gig has turned into a multi-million-pound industry powered by bots and dodgy practices, ripping off fans and harming the music industry.

It’s an unfair practice that has seen exploitative touts’ bulk-buy tickets with one intention; to resell them at inflated prices, leaving genuine fans with an impossible choice of paying eye-watering mark-ups on resale platforms or missing out on the music, theatre, and sports they love.

This is not only unfair on fans, but also on artists and their crews who work tirelessly night after night to put on an incredible show. The profit that is being pocketed by touts, is being sucked out of the live industry.

Finally, that's about to change.

The government has confirmed it will implement a pricing cap, meaning it will be illegal for tickets to be resold at more than face value – a bold and necessary move that we welcome wholeheartedly.

This move will go a long way in protecting fans while recognising the requirement to still allow tickets to be resold when needed.

Sometimes life gets in the way, gigs get missed, and tickets need to be resold, but this shouldn’t come with an inflated price tag for those rebuying them. This fight has never been about stopping fans from reselling when they need to, but about disarming a profession set up to exploit music fans simply for their love of live entertainment.

Today marks another step forward, one we’re proud to have played a part in. However, O2’s research with YouGov shows that ticket touts are costing music fans more than £145 million extra a year, so for every day this new legislation is not passed, fans are facing £400,000 worth of additional costs on the price of their tickets.

We applaud the government for making its intention and message clear, but now is the time to strike and make real and lasting change.

With the public firmly behind them, we urge the government to waste no time in including this legislation in the next King’s Speech to restore fairness in live music for all.

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Gareth Griffiths is Director of Partnerships and Sponsorship at Virgin Media O2.

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