The Global Spread of Ticket Scalping... Countries Step Up Regulations [War on Scalping]

③ Regulations Tighten as Ticket Prices Soar in the US, Japan, and Taiwan
Real-Name Systems, Heavy Fines, Bot Bans...
Expansion of Resale and Platform Accountability

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The issue of ticket scalping is not unique to Korea. As global demand for K-pop concerts and sporting events has surged, key countries such as Japan and the United States have also seen ticket prices soar, with tickets being resold for dozens of times their original price.

Recently, Taiwan undertook strong institutional reforms after seeing prices for scalped tickets to major concerts skyrocket to dozens of times the face value. When some tickets for BLACKPINK and Super Junior concerts were traded at 40 times their original price, the government explicitly banned the purchase of tickets for the purpose of reselling them above face value. The revised law prohibiting illegal resale of concert tickets, enacted in 2023, allows for fines of up to 50 times the ticket's face value and even imprisonment if unfair profits are detected.

Alongside harsher penalties, Taiwan introduced a real-name ticketing system, official resale channels, and a reward system for reporting violations. Buyers must link their real-name information during the booking process, and at the venue, identity is verified through an ID or QR code. Notably, the introduction of the real-name system has been credited with a significant reduction in scalping. Taiwan also operates official resale channels based on face value, and local governments regularly release data on violations and imposed fines.

Japan implemented its law prohibiting illegal resale of concert tickets in 2019, designating repeated resale for profit as a criminal offense. Offenders face up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 1 million yen (approximately 944,000 won). Since the law took effect, there have been actual cases where individuals who secured large quantities of electronic tickets for K-pop and J-pop concerts and resold them were prosecuted and found guilty.

Japan clearly distinguishes between illegal resale and permitted official resale. Major production and ticketing companies operate official resale platforms, allowing tickets to be resold at face value or within a limited fee range for legitimate reasons; any transaction outside these channels is considered illegal. Recently, there was a case where a production company and ticketing agency won a lawsuit demanding disclosure of information on suspected illegal resellers from a specific resale website.

The United Kingdom focuses its policies on banning bots and regulating platforms. As tickets for major events such as the Premier League and Glastonbury Festival were rapidly transferred to secondary markets and prices soared, the government amended the Digital Economy Act in 2017 to criminalize the use of automated programs (bots). A subsequent regulation implemented in 2018 allows for unlimited fines for violations.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK requires global platforms such as Ticketmaster-affiliated resale sites and Viagogo to disclose key information to consumers, including seat location, face value, seller identity, and ticket restrictions. Failure to comply results in court enforcement orders. The UK views the scalping market as an industry centered on platforms and brokers, rather than individual transactions, and requires platforms to identify, block, and disclose illegal transactions.

The United States manages the scalping market through both federal and state-level regulations. The BOTS Act, enacted in 2016, prohibits bypassing security measures in ticketing systems to purchase more tickets than allowed and defines the resale of such tickets as a federal crime. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general use this law to crack down on bot-based brokers, and there have been cases where organizations secured hundreds of thousands of tickets using fake accounts and were caught.

Recently, following the chaos surrounding Taylor Swift's tour ticket sales, state-level regulations have also been strengthened. Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Texas now require ticket prices to be displayed as an "all-in price," including all fees. They have also banned bulk purchases using bots and duplicate sales of the same ticket, increasing fines for violations. New York is considering a measure to limit resale prices to within 25% of the original price. In fact, the average scalped ticket price for the Taylor Swift tour was found to be $3,800 (about 5.56 million won), and for the Beyonce tour, over $1,000 (about 1.46 million won).

As such, governments around the world are introducing a variety of measures-real-name ticketing, high fines, criminal penalties, bot bans, and platform regulations-to restore order in the market. There is a growing consensus that the scalping issue cannot be solved with one-off crackdowns, and more structural regulations are being pursued. In Korea as well, measures such as reward systems for reporting or increasing fines may only have short-term effects, and the effectiveness of regulation will depend on how these systems are combined.