The Government hits back at ticket touts

It's one of the overwhelming frustrations as a live music fan. You set an alarm at the crack of dawn, wait for tickets to go on sale, refresh the ticket site, only to find that a few minutes later, the tickets have completely sold out- now they're on Stub Hub for five times the price.

Some hopeful news comes for gig goers this week though.. it looks like the wheels have been set in motion to finally put a stop to ticket touting and resale scammers.

Under the new Digital Economy Act unveiled this week, touts who use 'bots' and automated systems to buy and resell tickets will now face a sea of unlimited fines.

For years, scalpers have had free rein of automated technology- they've used online bots to exceed the maximum number of online tickets permitted for purchase per transaction, only to resell at exploitive prices later on. It's a rogue tactic which cheats true fans out of face value tickets, and puts those responsible reselling firms under serious scrutiny.

Last year the tides began to turn as we saw a number of secondary ticketing companies put under investigation, amidst reports of dodgy-goings-on between reselling firms and ticket bot hoarders. Music fans and artists alike raised their voice against unscrupulous ticket touting. Ed Sheeran's 2017 arena tour was a common example of how easily touts could get hold of, and resell, popular tickets without any consequence.

It certainly isn't the answer to ALL of the music industry's ticket touting problems, but this new change in the law books is a promising nod in the direction of music fans. It shows a law binding acknowledgement of the need to stop scammers, and put ownership back into the hands of music consumers.