About the FanFair Alliance

Who we are

The FanFair Alliance was established to unite members of music and creative community who wish to take a stand against industrial-scale online ticket touting.

FanFair was funded initially by the following music managers and businesses:

Adam Tudhope, Everybody’s (Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling, Keane)

Alex Bruford, ATC Live (The Lumineers, Half Moon Run, Lucy Rose)

Brian Message, ATC Management (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)

Ian McAndrew, Wildlife Entertainment (Arctic Monkeys, Royal Blood, Travis)

Harry Magee, Modest Management (One Direction, Little Mix, Cheryl, Alison Moyet)

Aims

In our first phase, FanFair’s objectives were pragmatic: to push for the enforcement of existing legislation, such as the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and to force the operators of tout-dependent websites (such as viagogo and StubHub) in full compliance with the law.

After some notable successes, the campaign adopted a new strategy in September 2023, built around a simple three-point plan:

1. 1 Legislative action: 

New laws making it illegal to resell a ticket for profit, bringing the UK into line with other progressive music markets.

2. Tech action:  

Platforms like Google and YouTube must stop promoting touts, and help direct consumers towards legitimate sources of tickets

3. Industry action: 

Across the board, the live music business needs to make capped consumer-friendly ticket resale visible and viable

You can read more about our three-point plan here.

FanFair has also produced a series of guides aimed at both audiences and artists.

These are FREE to download and include:

• Advice for artists & managers about combatting online ticket touting
• Advice for consumers about buying tickets online and beating the touts
• Advice on how to seek refunds from secondary ticketing platforms

Policy

Following more than five years of investigation into the UK’s secondary ticketing market, and after enforcing some significant changes on the controversial business practices of websites such as viagogo and StubHub, in August 2021, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) concluded that stronger legislation was required to tackle illegal ticket resale.

Subsequently, the CMA issued a small set of recommendations to Government in order to better protect consumers.

Unfortunately, and despite ongoing reports of unlawful practices, in May 2023, the Government overruled these recommendations – preferring to trust the “power of competitive markets to give consumers choice and flexibility”.

We maintain that this conclusion was deeply flawed, and stand by the CMA’s original assessment that further action is still required to address mass-scale ticket touting.

As a result, in September 2023, the FanFair Alliance campaign was relaunched around a three-point plan – including a call for new laws that would make it illegal to resell a ticket for profit.