# Europe goes after ticket touting: what the new rules mean for organisers — MijnEvent [Home](https://mijnevent.nl/en) / [Blog for event organizers](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog) / Europe goes after ticket touting: what the new rules mean for organisers resale legislation ticket sales consumer rights # Europe goes after ticket touting: what the new rules mean for organisers From sky-high World Cup tickets to a British price cap and a European law in the making — resale is back in the spotlight this summer. What is actually happening, and what can you do as an organiser without waiting for Brussels? MijnEvent · 27 July 2026 · 6 min read ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/ticket-touting-europe.webp) Photo: [ActionVance](https://unsplash.com/@actionvance?utm_source=MijnEvent&utm_medium=referral) / [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=MijnEvent&utm_medium=referral) In short - The European Commission is working on the Digital Fairness Act, with a legislative proposal expected late 2026. Resale is not yet a core topic, but pressure to change that is building. - The UK is opting for a hard price cap (no resale above face value), the US for transparency without price rules — Europe is still somewhere in between. - The Netherlands has no maximum resale price: the Senate rejected that law. For now, protecting your audience is up to you, not the legislator. - You don't have to wait for new legislation: capped resale, a virtual queue against bots and transparent fees are things you can set up inside your own platform today. If one subject keeps coming back in the events-industry news this summer, it is the price of a ticket. Not the price you charge, but what happens to it afterwards: the resale. And while it is easy to think this only concerns stadium concerts and the World Cup, the debate touches everyone who sells tickets — including a parade, a theatre show or a club event that sells faster than expected. Here is the state of play, and then what you can actually do about it as an organiser. # Why ticket prices are back in the news Part of the trigger is the 2026 football World Cup. FIFA used dynamic pricing for the first time: the price climbed in real time as demand surged. According to an [analysis by the London School of Economics](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2026/06/30/fifa-world-cup-ticket-pricing-algorithmic-dynamic/), premium final tickets reached 32,970 dollars, where the inflation-adjusted average sat around 1,300. Even the cheapest final seats rose from roughly 540 to 4,185 dollars. On the resale market, tickets were advertised for as much as 11.5 million dollars — with the organiser taking a 30 percent commission on the resale itself. Those figures are a different world for a local organiser. But they expose the core of the problem: the moment a ticket becomes scarce, a market forms around it that has nothing to do with you or your visitor. Bots buy tickets in bulk, resale platforms put them back with a hefty markup, and the fan foots the bill. # Three continents, three directions What stands out in 2026 is that the major regions are making completely different choices, as an [overview by Event Tech Live](https://eventtechlive.com/the-great-ticket-resale-divide-how-the-uk-eu-and-us-are-taking-radically-different-paths-on-consumer-protection/) sets out. ## United Kingdom: the price cap The UK is taking the hardest line. Since late 2025 the government has been working on a ban on resale above face value — the original price plus unavoidable fees. Platforms get a legal duty to enforce it, and nobody may resell more tickets than they bought. The regulator can impose fines of up to 10 percent of global turnover. The government expects around 112 million pounds in annual consumer savings. ## European Union: the Digital Fairness Act The EU sits in between. The European Commission is working on the **Digital Fairness Act**, a broad law against unfair online practices such as hidden fees and misleading design. The public consultation closed in October 2025; the legislative proposal is expected in late 2026. Resale is not currently a core topic of that law — and that is where the friction is. In an [open letter](https://completemusicupdate.com/eus-digital-fairness-act-provides-one-off-chance-to-tackle-fraudulent-ticket-touting-practices/), more than 130 European artists, promoters and festivals called on the EU to bring industrial ticket resale explicitly under the law after all. A survey by that coalition showed how powerless organisers currently are: of 296 reported rule-breaches, all but one were ignored by the platforms, and of twenty escalations to national regulators only a handful drew any response — sometimes months after the event had ended. ## United States: transparency over price rules The US takes a different philosophy: resale is allowed at any price (in 48 states), but the price must be fully visible from the first click. Since May 2025 the American regulator requires "all-in" pricing, so no fees appear at the checkout. No price cap, then, but hard transparency. # What about the Netherlands? For anyone reading from outside the Netherlands, some context: Dutch consumer protection here is deliberately light. There is no maximum resale price. A private member's bill that sought to limit intermediaries to at most 120 percent of the original price was [rejected by the Senate](https://www.vnpf.nl/nieuws/wet-maximumprijs-doorverkoop-tickets-door-eerste-kamer-verworpen). Calls for new rules persist — there is pressure on the government to come up with a more workable proposal — but [for now nothing changes](https://radar.avrotros.nl/artikel/toch-geen-strengere-regels-voor-doorverkoop-van-tickets-23377). That means something important: in the Netherlands you cannot lean on the law to stop touting prices. Protecting your visitor starts with you. What is and isn't allowed, and why an organiser sometimes has to regulate resale themselves, is covered in [ticket resale for visitors](/en/blog/ticket-resale-for-visitors). # What you can set up right now Legislation is slow, and even if the Digital Fairness Act arrives, it will be years before you feel anything of it in practice. The good news: the three things the legislators are squabbling over — price caps, bot control and transparency — are already in your own hands. ## Keep resale inside your own walls The reason the secondary market is such a mess is that tickets flow off to platforms where you have no say. Turn that around: offer resale inside your own ticket sales, on your terms. On MijnEvent you decide per ticket type whether resale is allowed and up to what price — for example, never above the original price. A visitor who can't make it resells their ticket safely to the next in line, with a fresh valid ticket and no touting markup. How that works is in [enable resale as an organiser](/en/blog/enable-resale-as-organiser). ## Sideline the bots The bulk of touting starts with automated buying. For an expected peak — sales opening at 10:00 — you keep bots and fraudsters out with a [virtual waiting room](/en/blog/virtual-waiting-room-for-peak-sales). Everyone gets a fair place in the queue, and the tickets land with real visitors instead of a reseller. Alongside that, it helps to teach your audience where the pitfalls are, which we covered in [ticket fraud: protecting your audience](/en/blog/ticket-fraud-protecting-your-audience). ## Be transparent about your fees The American "all-in" rule and the British cap share one principle: the visitor must not be surprised at the checkout. That is exactly the standard you can already hold yourself to. Show service fees from the outset, itemised, with no surprises in the final step. # Staying level-headed: no need to wait The debate on ticket touting is far from settled. Europe is moving, but slowly; the Netherlands has shut the door on a price cap for now. For you as an organiser, that changes little about the heart of the matter: your visitor buys a ticket for a fair price, and you protect that fairness best by keeping both the sale and the resale in your own hands. That is exactly what MijnEvent is built for: one fixed amount per ticket instead of a percentage of your revenue, resale on your price rules, and a payout that lands straight in your own account. Want to see what that costs? Check the [pricing](/en/pricing), or [register your organisation](/registreer) and set up your first event. Frequently asked questions ## Frequently asked questions ## Can I set my own maximum resale price? Yes. There is no national maximum price in the Netherlands, but as the organiser you set your own terms. On MijnEvent you decide per ticket type whether resale is allowed and up to what price — for example, never above the original price. That keeps touting out without waiting for new legislation. ## What is the Digital Fairness Act? An upcoming EU law targeting unfair online practices — think misleading design, hidden fees and addictive design. The proposal is expected in late 2026. Part of the events industry is lobbying to bring industrial ticket resale explicitly under the law. ## Does the UK price cap apply to organisers elsewhere in Europe? No. The British proposal applies within the United Kingdom. It is a signal of where the debate is heading, though, and it shows regulators increasingly placing responsibility on the platforms themselves. [ Back to blog ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog) MijnEvent ## Read more [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/automatic-membership-renewal-dutch-law.webp) memberships Jasper Koers · 27 July 2026 · 6 min read ## Automatic membership renewal: collecting fees within Dutch renewal law Automatic renewal saves your club a pile of chasing work, but the law has rules about cancelling. Here is how renewal works in MijnEvent, and how to keep it clean. ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/automatic-membership-renewal-dutch-law) [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/ontruimingsverslag-evenement-bewijsstuk.webp) safety MijnEvent · 27 July 2026 · 5 min read ## The evacuation record: why the day after your event matters for the next permit An evacuation — real or drilled — is only finished once it is on paper. What belongs in an evacuation record, why the municipality asks for it, and how to make the record write itself instead of reconstructing it afterwards? ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/evacuation-record-event-evidence) [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/knmi-weeralerts-veiligheidsplan.webp) safety MijnEvent · 27 July 2026 · 3 min read ## Weather monitoring in your safety plan: how KNMI warnings land in your alerts and logbook automatically Almost every safety-plan format has a 'weather monitoring' section — and almost nobody fills it in concretely. The Safety & Permit module pulls the KNMI warning code for your event location every hour and turns it into a demonstrable process. ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/knmi-weather-alerts-event-safety-plan) MijnEvent ## Ready to get started? Create a free account and sell your first tickets today. [Start free](https://mijnevent.nl/registreer) [Pricing](https://mijnevent.nl/en/pricing)