Ticket resale website StubHub has come under fire after allowing a prolific tout to advertise more than 300 tickets for a sold-out Lewis Capaldi concert. The firm TG Cyprus Event Services Ltd (TGCES) listed 306 seats for Capaldi's tour opener at Sheffield Arena on 6 September, with prices up to £248 – more than three times the face value.
TGCES also listed tickets for Oasis, Billie Eilish, and Wimbledon finals for up to £41,900 each. Ticketing expert Reg Walker said the listings 'give very clear reason to suspect industrial-scale criminality', noting there is no legal way to harvest tickets in such bulk without using automated bots or multiple identities, which would constitute fraud.
Walker suggested the alternative explanation is speculative selling, where touts list tickets they do not yet own and then try to source them cheaper elsewhere. StubHub said it does not permit speculative selling but did not directly address the TGCES listings.
Consumer group Which? called on ministers to introduce a price cap on secondary ticket sales and force platforms to verify sellers own tickets before listing. Lisa Webb of Which? described the Capaldi listings as 'yet another example of a broken ticketing industry that desperately needs fixing'.
Last year, the Guardian revealed TGCES had listed 1,596 tickets for Oasis reunion shows on StubHub, which were removed after press inquiries but the company was later allowed to return. StubHub said it enforces strict measures to protect consumers and that bot use is an issue for primary ticket platforms.
