Ticket resale site StubHub may have breached consumer law by allowing a prolific tout to advertise more than 300 tickets for a sold-out Lewis Capaldi concert, experts have said. The listings, by TG Cyprus Event Services Ltd (TGCES), included 306 seats for Capaldi’s tour opener at Sheffield Arena, priced up to £248 each – more than three times face value.
StubHub and rival Viagogo face intense scrutiny from ministers considering a ban on for-profit ticket resale. Despite this, analysis suggests unlawful business practices persist. TGCES also listed tickets for Oasis, Billie Eilish, and Wimbledon finals, the latter at £41,900 each.
Ticketing expert Reg Walker said the bulk listings gave “reason to suspect industrial-scale criminality”, noting that harvesting tickets in such volumes typically involves illegal methods like automated bots or multiple identities, which would constitute fraud. StubHub said it did not condone bots but blamed primary platforms for not tackling them. Walker suggested an alternative explanation: speculative selling, where touts list tickets they do not yet own.
StubHub did not directly address the TGCES listings but stated it prohibits speculative selling. Consumer group Which? called for a price cap on resale and for platforms to verify ticket ownership before listings. Last year, TGCES advertised 1,596 Oasis reunion tickets on StubHub, which were removed after media inquiry but later reappeared.
