"Disappointing" is the word of the week in the UK music biz, after the UK government seem to have kicked the can down the road on tackling ticket touts aka "secondary ticketing".

Why? The King's Speech happened yesterday. The Keir Starmer's Labour government promised to end ticket touting. And yet...

What we got was a draft bill. Buried on page 64 of a supplementary document. Not in the speech itself. Not legislation. Not a law. A draft, which means more consultations, an uncertain timeline, and the door left open for the secondary ticketing platforms to shape whatever comes next.

DiS podcast host Sean Adams revisits the full sixteen-year history of this fight, from Sharon Hodgson's Private Member's Bill in 2010, through the Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, the Waterson Review, the founding of the FanFair Alliance, the Digital Economy Act, the CMA's rejected recommendations, Labour's manifesto promise, the Oasis dynamic pricing scandal, and the November 2025 announcement that made everyone think change was finally coming.

Then he's rejoined by Kat Cereda, spokesperson for Which?, to dig into what a draft bill actually means, why secondary ticketing websites getting involved in shaping the legislation is exactly what campaigners feared, and what Which? does next.

And at the end of the episode, Adam Webb from the FanFair Alliance gives his reaction - he's someone who has been in the trenches of this campaign since 2016.

Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.

Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)

Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.

Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org

Which?
Stop Fleecing Fans campaign: https://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/stop-fleecing-fans

FanFair Alliance
https://fanfairalliance.org/

Music Fans Voice
https://musicfansvoice.uk/

CMS Committee Fan-Led Review of Live and Electronic Music
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/213147/

Further reading
Everything you need to know about gig tickets: https://www.drownedinsound.org/gig-tickets/

Previous episodes in this series
Kat Cereda (Which?) on the open letter to Keir Starmer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-uk-government-promised-to-end-ticket-touting-so/id1037405920?i=1000764130066 
Adam Webb (FanFair Alliance) on ticket resale and the FanFair campaign: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/uk-caps-ticket-resale-at-face-value-what-took-so-long/id1037405920?i=1000737461606