Going spare? Concert tickets, touting and cultural value

This article explores recent events around the secondary market for concert tickets in the UK. It first outlines the nature of the primary and secondary markets for concert tickets and then the story of attempts in the UK to regulate them over a twenty-year period, providing the political and industrial context. It moves on to examine key aspects of the political debates around tickets and the findings of enquiries into the subject – including the rhetoric around ‘real fans’ – and discusses the gradual dilution of legislative proposals (from an outright ban, to a cap, to mandating transparency) and legitimation of the secondary market. We then discuss the broader ramifications of the secondary ticket market for access to cultural events and suggest that those who wish to mobilise against the secondary market could gain much by looking beyond the market value of tickets towards ideas of cultural value which have hitherto played little part in the debate.