The moment a gig sells out, a second economy snaps into life. Within minutes, the same tickets that sold for £60 are listed on resale platforms for two, three, sometimes ten times that price. The seller keeps most of it. The platform takes a cut of 20–30%. And the fan — already committed, already excited — pays whatever it takes.
This is the secondary ticket market: a multi-billion-pound industry that sits between artists and audiences, adding cost and confusion at every turn. It has attracted regulatory scrutiny, consumer outrage, and, recently, a new generation of platforms promising to do things differently. The question is whether any of them can actually change how tickets change hands.
The big players — and the fees they don't advertise
viagogo is the most visible name in secondary ticketing and also the most controversial. The Switzerland-based platform has faced repeated action from regulators in the UK, Australia, and the EU for displaying misleading prices — showing a low headline figure, then adding fees of 25–40% at checkout. The Competition and Markets Authority forced changes in 2019, but fans continue to report being caught out by the gap between the listed price and what they actually pay. viagogo's scale is undeniable — it lists millions of tickets across thousands of events globally — but its reputation for putting profit above the buyer experience is well-earned.
Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan Resale (sometimes called Verified Resale) takes a different approach: it is built directly into the original ticketing flow, so if you bought through Ticketmaster and want to resell, the listing sits inside the same system. That convenience matters. Buyers see verified tickets and transfer happens securely. The cost is a service fee that typically runs 20–25% on top of the resale price, plus a facility fee on top of that. For a £100 resale ticket, the final price can easily reach £130. It is legitimate and safe; it is not cheap.
The fan-to-fan challengers
TicketSwap carved out a loyal following by capping resale prices at 20% above face value on many events, and by taking a flat 10–15% service fee. In markets where promoters have adopted it as their official resale partner — particularly in the Netherlands and increasingly in the UK — it has meaningfully reduced profiteering. The limitation is coverage: TicketSwap works best when events actively opt in, and a lot of the biggest events (where resale pressure is fiercest) have not done so.
The newest entrant worth knowing about is tickethunter.io, a fan-to-fan marketplace built around a simple premise: sellers should not pay to list. TicketHunter charges zero seller fees until 2027, and buyers pay a flat 13% — considerably less than the fees routinely charged by viagogo or Ticketmaster resale. Listings are handled via an AI-powered assistant (you chat rather than fill in forms), payments are held in escrow until after the event takes place, and the platform integrates with tickets issued via Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, See Tickets, and Eventim. A watchlist feature notifies buyers when verified tickets are listed for sold-out events.
The escrow model is worth underlining. One of the persistent risks in peer-to-peer ticket resale is paying for a ticket that never arrives, or discovering the seller has duplicated their listing. Holding payment until post-event removes the seller's incentive to do either.
Why the problem persists
The secondary market exists because the primary market routinely underprices demand. An artist or promoter setting ticket prices at £80 for an arena show that could sell out at £200 is, in effect, donating the difference to whoever buys and resells early. That gap is structural, and no amount of consumer anger changes the arithmetic.
There are arguments — from economists, if rarely from artists — that dynamic pricing in the primary market would reduce the resale premium by eliminating it in the first place. Ticketmaster introduced dynamic pricing for several high-profile tours in recent years and was roundly condemned. The alternative, all-in pricing transparency and price-capped resale, is what regulators have pushed for; it is also what platforms like TicketSwap and tickethunter.io are trying to make the default.
Whether lower-fee alternatives can gain the reach needed to reshape the market remains to be seen. viagogo's dominance is partly a function of its marketing budget — it shows up at the top of search results for almost any sold-out event. But fan awareness of the alternatives is growing, and the fee gap is large enough that, for any buyer prepared to do ten minutes of research, the savings are real.
If you are buying resale tickets in 2026, the practical advice is straightforward: check face value before you search resale sites, add up the total at checkout (not the headline price), and compare across platforms before you commit. The same ticket can vary by 30% or more depending on where you buy it.