Recommendations of the Editorial team
A broad alliance of musicians, event organizers and industry associations is calling on the German federal government to take action: With an open letter, the initiative is pushing for legal regulation of the secondary ticket market.
This is aimed in particular at overpriced resales, bots and a system that puts fake tickets into circulation. The initiative is initiated by the “Pro Musik” initiative, supported by the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry (BDKV).
A long list of bands and artists support this initiative: including Die Ärzte, Die Toten Hosen, Kraftwerk, Nina Chuba, AnnenMayKantereit, Johannes Oerding, Thees Uhlmann, Element of Crime, Kraftklub, Annett Louisan and many more. The German Music Council as well as the organizer association LiveKomm and other music associations also support the demands.
An unregulated parallel market
At the center of the criticism is a secondary market which, according to the signatories, has increasingly developed into an “unregulated parallel market”. Tickets would be bought en masse using automated software and then resold at extreme prices. Offers worth several thousand euros are no longer uncommon on relevant platforms.
Christopher Annen, chairman of “Pro Musik” and guitarist of AnnenMayKantereit, has clear words for this: “We no longer want to accept that individuals enrich themselves at the expense of the fans by reselling tickets at extortionate prices. Politicians must make the platforms responsible for stopping these practices.”
The open letter not only describes drastic price increases of more than 250 percent, but also so-called short sales: Tickets were offered before the official start of advance sales, even though they did not yet exist at the time of sale. In addition, there is the trade in counterfeit tickets, which means that fans regularly find themselves standing in front of closed hall or festival entrances with worthless tickets.
Europe regulates – Germany does not
The signatories point to other European countries where the secondary ticket market is already significantly more strictly regulated. In France, commercial resale has been restricted for years, while in Great Britain there are transparency requirements for sellers. In the USA there is also a law against automated ticket purchases called the “BOTS Act”.
Germany, on the other hand, has so far been an “almost regulation-free area for ticket speculators”. The federal government even announced in the coalition agreement that it wanted to control the secondary market more closely. The initiative is now reminding people of this and formulating concrete demands: a price cap of a maximum of 25 percent above the original price, a ban on ticket bots and short sales, as well as stricter transparency requirements and a mandatory reporting system for platforms.
Support from sports and consumer protection
The campaign also receives support from other areas: The German Football Association (DFB), the German Football League (DFL), the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and consumer centers had previously spoken out in favor of stricter rules. According to the initiative, Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig has now announced the first “activities” of her house.
In an interview with the trade journal “Musikwoche”, the concert agency MCT uses Ross and Reiter as a specific example: “In the run-up to the Florence & The Machine concerts, we examined the resale activities on five of the largest unauthorized resale platforms – Viagogo, Ticombo, SeatsNet, Ticketbande and Gigsberg. We found 819 available tickets for Florence in Cologne, 1125 tickets for Munich and 893 for Berlin, in total 2,837 tickets across the five sites. However, we know that some resellers offer the same ticket on multiple sites, so the total could be slightly lower than the original price.”
Secondary ticket “market leader” Viagogo and the internet search engine Google, which always places second-party providers at the top of ticket inquiries, consider possible legal regulations to be “unnecessary”.
Parliament of Pop: Politics and the concert industry in dialogue
Independent of the open letter from the “Pro Music” initiative, the topic surrounding the Bundestag should be discussed more intensively. On May 20, 2026, an event will take place in Berlin’s Paul-Löbe-Haus as part of the “Parliament of Pop” series, which has already taken place at the EU in Brussels – with representatives from politics and the concert industry.
Aspects such as “true crime ticketing” and “the fascination of social tickets” are discussed. The Pop and Politics round goes a few steps further and highlights various perspectives on the billion-dollar concert market: from ticket fraud and exorbitant prices to questions of cultural participation.
Clear words from the Bundestag
Johannes Fechner (SPD), member of the Bundestag Committee for Law and Consumer Protection, calls for significantly tougher action against speculative resales: “The rip-off of sports and music fans must be stopped. It is unacceptable for tickets for concerts or football games to be resold on the secondary market at exorbitant prices. We finally need clear and effective rules for the secondary ticket market that consistently protect consumers and organizers and ensure fair prices. Culture and sport must not be a business model for rip-offs.”
Colleague Martin Rabanus, chairman of the Committee for Culture and Media, also emphasizes the social dimension of the problem: “Pop culture is democracy. Concerts are lived participation – and must remain accessible to everyone.
