Tout offers £1m of U2 tickets on StubHub, raising questions about ‘bot’ clampdown

Detailed summary

Artists and industry figures call for culture secretary to ‘shut down the touts’ by outlawing resale for profitOne tout is advertising £1m of tickets for U2’s long-awaited 2027…

Artists and industry figures call for culture secretary to ‘shut down the touts’ by outlawing resale for profit

One tout is advertising £1m of tickets for U2’s long-awaited 2027 tour through StubHub, raising questions about the website’s condemnation of professional ticket traders who use “bot” software to scoop up tickets and exploit genuine fans.

Seats for the four-night London leg of the Irish band’s The Greatest Show on Earth tour sold out last week, shortly after going on sale.

Fans chasing tickets appear to have been beaten to the punch by prolific touts using sites such as StubHub to charge eye-watering mark-ups.

StubHub listings for U2’s gigs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London show more than 2,000 tickets listed by a single tout despite strict limits on how many can be purchased by each buyer.

Vladyslav Skrypka, who claims to be based in Harlow, Essex, advertised more than 1,800 tickets for one of the nights alone, with some on sale for more than four times face value.

If all of his tickets were to sell for the sums listed, Skrypka would stand to make more than £1m.

The findings come amid clamour from artists and music industry figures for the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, to move forward with plans that she outlined a year ago to “shut down the touts’ racket” by outlawing resale for profit.

A ticket tout ban bill is due to be published during the current parliamentary session, which might not end until well into 2027.

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