Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Secondary Ticketing and Dynamic Pricing

Thursday 17 October 2024 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 2 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Minister plans to launch a consultation on the secondary ticket market soon.
  • Dynamic pricing has various forms, some beneficial to consumers.
  • Government will not interfere with beneficial forms of dynamic pricing.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Jerome Mayhew Con Broadland and Fakenham
Culture, Media & Sport
Context

The question stems from the need to address issues within secondary ticket markets and dynamic pricing in live events, focusing on ensuring fan access and creative industry revenues.

Question

When she plans to launch a consultation on secondary ticketing and dynamic pricing.

Answer from Chris Bryant

We want to put fans back at the heart of live events and we want to ensure that more of the revenues come to the creative industries. That is why we will be launching a consultation on the secondary ticket market soon—the piece of paper in front of me actually says “in the autumn”, but I am never quite sure when that is, so I am going with “soon”.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The question about dynamic pricing was not addressed directly.

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Q2 Jerome Mayhew Con Broadland and Fakenham
Context

The question follows up on the previous one, focusing on dynamic pricing. It addresses the potential benefits of dynamic pricing for consumers while questioning government interference.

Question

I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I understand the need to look at secondary ticketing, but dynamic pricing is a contractual bargain between buyer and seller, based on supply and demand. It actually gives us cheaper tickets as well as more expensive ones. Does he really want the Government to get involved there? I know that the Prime Minister wants everyone to be able to afford concert tickets, but what is wrong with the way that he gets them?

Answer from Chris Bryant

The truth is that dynamic pricing has many different forms and some of them are good. For instance, early bird tickets benefit many people, as does buying last-minute tickets for the theatre. We will not interfere with that, but we will have a call for evidence about how that works in relation to live events. On ticket pricing, the real scandal is that, for example, the face value of standing tickets for Coldplay at Wembley on 22 August 2025 is £96.23, but when I checked StubHub this morning they cost £17,633. That is the real scandal and that is what we are going to deal with.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The question about interfering in dynamic pricing was not directly answered; rather, a call for evidence was mentioned without clear commitment to action.

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