Bastille frontman Dan Smith has expressed his frustration over ticket touting in the UK, as the pop band prepare to head out on their biggest tour since 2016.
The From All Sides – Songs From the First 15 Years tour is due to begin in Plymouth on 6 November and includes nine UK arena shows, culminating at London’s O2 Arena on 18 November.
The tour will feature music from the first 15 years of the band's career. with a donation going towards Youth Music's Rescue The Roots campaign, helping to protect the future of the grassroots youth music sector.
Smith, 38, is encouraging music fans to share their views for a government consultation that will endeavour to make ticket-buying fairer, following uproar over major tours for artists such as Taylor Swift and Oasis.
The onstage reunion of brothers Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher for the first time since 2009 is one of the anticipated events of 2025, yet the news was marred as fans found themselves paying heavily inflated prices on Ticketmaster or on secondary ticketing websites.
“I've been in online queues trying to just get a ticket to see an artist that I love, and knowing that a huge chunk of the people in that queue are only there to buy the tickets and resell them at a massively inflated price is fundamentally unfair and really frustrating,” Smith said.
The singer behind hits including “Pompeii”, “Good Grief”, “Happier” and “Send Them Off!’ said ticket touring was frustrating on “many, many levels” and “really galling” for artists keen to keep prices fair for their fans.
He has teamed up with O2 to launch Stamp It Tout, a new information hub designed to help fans avoid being ripped off.
“I think resale stuff will always exist. But I think the idea of putting a (price) cap on it means that it can't inflate to something ridiculous”, he said.
O2 is calling for a 10 per cent price cap on resale concert tickets, as it shares research that suggests ticket touts cost music fans an extra £145m a year.
“As a band, we've always wanted to keep our ticket prices as low as possible, but obviously you're juggling the sort of realities of a tour, and what it costs to travel to put on that show to employ a whole load of people who are sort of juggling that – plus wanting to keep prices fair,” Smith said.
“So it is really galling to see someone come in and resell that ticket for, like double, triple the price, knowing that that money is not going back to the people who work really hard to put the tour together, work in the venues and all the sort of many, many, many other jobs that are involved.
“I guess, from our experience, we see online people and their frustrations around trying to get tickets in an honest way.”
He added: “We've always kept our prices low because we want our gigs to be accessible, and it's such a shame that you have to do codes and pre-sales and add sort of hoops to jump through for fans who are genuine, honest fans, knowing that there's this whole other kind of side industry that unfortunately exists.”
Alongside the consultation, ministers are calling for evidence into pricing practices in the live events sector, including so-called “dynamic pricing”, where prices fluctuate to reflect market demand.
Andrew Parsons, Ticketmaster's UK managing director, denied that the company uses dynamic pricing when he was quizzed by MPs in February.
As well as the new information hub, O2 is deploying a Consultation Station at The O2 in London from April 1 to 3, where fans can submit their own views on ticket touting and how the government should take action.
The views gathered across the three days will then form part of O2's own response to the consultation to ensure music fans' voices are being heard and represented.
The government consultation is open until 4 April. Tickets for Bastille’s tour go on sale on Friday 28 March.
Additional reporting by Press Association
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