Coldplay To Dua Lipa Urges UK Government To Limit Concert Ticket Selling Prices By Brokers

JAKARTA - A wave of protests from a number of the world's top musicians against the practice of resale concert tickets (resales) which are considered 'forcing' to reach its peak.

This time, Coldplay and Dua Lipa openly urged the British Government to impose maximum price restrictions for resold tickets.

This decisive step was taken together with a row of other big names in the music industry, including New Order, Iron Maiden, Sam Fender, PJ Harvey, Mark Knopfler, to Robert Smith from The Cure.

They have all signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, demanding that the British government immediately take action to protect fans from ticket brokers' actions.

"It's been too long since certain resale platforms have let brokers buy large tickets, then resell them at soaring prices, forcing fans to pay beyond reasonable limits or even not being able to watch them at all," read the statement. the statement, quoted by the BBC, Friday, November 14.

They assess that this condition has eroded public confidence in the live event sector and undermined the efforts of the artists and organizers to keep performances accessible and affordable to all people.

Musicians believe imposing ticket price limits will "recover confidence in ticket sales systems, help democratize public access to art in accordance with the Government's agenda, and make it easier for fans to detect illegal behavior, such as ticket fraud."

This pressure does not only come from musicians. A number of leading organizations also signed signatures in the statement, including the WHich supervisory body?, O2, Football Supporters Association, FanFair Alliance, and several other groups representing managers, ticket retailers, venues, to the music and theater industry.

They called for new protections designed to "help improve elements of the blackmail and harming secondary ticket market, which only serve the interests of brokers, whose exploitative practices prevent true fans from accessing their beloved music, theaters and sports."

The musicians' concerns are also supported by new findings from an investigation conducted by Which? The report reveals that ticket sellers from remote locations such as Brazil, Spain, the United States, Dubai, and Singapore, massively bought tickets for events in the UK. The tickets are then resold at fantastic prices through platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub.

Data from the investigation shows that tickets for the Oasis concert at Wembley were sold at a price of 3,498.85 US dollars (Rp58.4 million) in StubHub, even more than US$400 (Rp66.8 million) in Viagogo.

The "specular sale" practice was also found, where tickets were already registered on the secondary site even though the seller himself had not actually bought them from the official distributor. For example, when tickets for the Busted vshon concert in Glasgow were still available at the original seller (Ticketmaster), the same ticket was simultaneously registered with Viagogo and StubHub with double price tag.