Artists and promoters will charge more, there will be more rationing, more unsold seats and countless consumers will go disappointed who were willing to pay more.

Artists don’t have the systems that resellers have. Those systems help consumers, promoters and artists by finding the providing better market mechanisms, segmenting audiences and so on. Promoters and artists are guessing, in a one shot game. Resellers fix their mistakes.

If you don’t allow markets to set prices you get rationing. Which is not fair on consumers either, especially those with willingness to pay more. Touts give artists and promoters a cut, without which they will charge more.

The concept of market failure is trotted out far too easily. Liberalising the market for reselling tickets would balance demand and supply far more equitably. Artists talk out of both sides of their mouth and audiences will suffer - differently - under a ban.

Next time I get a cold, I'm going to betray it by having a Lemsip and some ibuprofen.