Ticket scalping
A multi-billion-dollar secondary market operating largely outside organizer control; ~20% of primary tickets are resold.
Secondary GMV, 2025$13.2B
Avg resale markup203%
The Industry Live events · entertainment · ticketing
Large, growing, and broken.
Live events are one of the most culturally significant and economically powerful sectors on earth — and one of the most structurally broken. Billions in ticket value flow away from the artists, organizers, and venues who create the experience.
//01 The Industry Today
After the disruption of 2020–2022, live events rebounded with extraordinary force — demand for in-person experience is not merely resilient, it is accelerating.
Live music revenue grew 26% year-over-year in 2023. Non-digital consumer spending accounts for 61% of entertainment & media revenue — a powerful affirmation that live, human experiences remain the dominant form of cultural consumption. Yet this growth masks deep structural dysfunction: a concentrated primary market under regulatory scrutiny, a secondary market operating at industrial scale, and infrastructure that has not kept pace with demand.
0%Live music revenue growth, YoY 2023PwC Global E&M Outlook, 2024
$54–101BOnline event ticketing market, 2024–25Global Infi / Polaris, 2024–25
0%Mobile share of ticketing transactionsSoftjourn, 2026
$0BEvent management software market, 2024Grand View Research, 2024
//02 The Cost of a Broken System
These are not abstract problems. They are measured, documented, and accelerating.
$0BSecondary ticket market — platform revenue, 2025Mordor Intelligence, 2025
$0Avg reseller gross profit per show (65 shows)NITO, October 2024
0BTaylor Swift presale system requests (4× prior peak)Ticketmaster / Reuters, 2022
£0MUK ticket-fraud losses, 2024 — up 47% YoYAction Fraud, April 2025
//03 Industry Problems
Ten interconnected structural failures.
Each is a failure of infrastructure, policy, or market design — drawn from verified government reports, regulatory filings, court cases, and industry research.
Ticket bots
Automated software circumvents purchase limits at scale. Illegal under the 2016 BOTS Act, yet enforcement has been limited.
Desirable tickets to botsup to 60%
Eras presale requests3.5B
Counterfeit tickets
Fraud causes significant consumer losses around high-demand events. Social media is the dominant channel.
UK fraud losses, 2024£9.7M
Year-over-year rise+47%
Black market sales
Unregulated channels — social marketplaces, messaging apps, fake sites — evade consumer protection, tax reporting, and anti-bot law.
UK gig fraud via social~50%
Revenue leakage
Value captured by intermediaries rather than artists, promoters, venues. Resale is not a discount market.
Resales at/above face98.3%
StubHub Q3'25 GMV$2.4B
Organizer challenges
Rising venue fees, labor costs, and inflation collide with pressure to deliver premium experiences — and weak data ownership.
Venue fees = top expense54%
Skipped events on price60%
Venue challenges
Arrival demand routinely exceeds processing capacity; fake and duplicate tickets consume 4–7 minutes per gate dispute.
Arrive in 30–60 min60–80%
Duplicate-ticket entries~3.7%
Attendee challenges
Opaque pricing, limited refunds, transfer restrictions, fraud exposure, and declining trust. Fee opacity is the top complaint.
Primary ticketing fees13–58%
Want scams stopped76%
Technology challenges
Legacy limitations, fragmented point solutions, poor integration, and weak analytics. Infrastructure failed under peak demand.
Fragmentation cost+40% time
Software market by 2030$17.3B
Structural transformation
The problems above are not static. Governments across the US, UK, and Canada are actively forcing the industry to change — see the timeline below.
Jury: overcharge per ticket$1.72
CMA fines up to10% turnover
//04 Regulatory Transformation
The industry is being forced to change. Portum is building for what comes next.
Antitrust litigation, junk-fee rules, BOTS Act enforcement, and face-value resale caps are reshaping market economics in favor of fair access.
United States
Antitrust & junk-fee enforcement
DOJ suit vs Live Nation/Ticketmaster (May 2024); jury found illegal monopolization (April 2026). FTC Junk Fees Rule (Dec 2024). Executive Order on BOTS Act enforcement (March 2025).
United Kingdom
Resale-above-face-value ban
Draft Ticket Tout Ban Bill proposing prohibition (2025–2026). DMCCA grants the CMA fines up to 10% of global turnover (April 2025).
Canada
Face-value resale cap
Ontario Ticket Sales Act enforcement of a face-value resale cap (2026).
U.S. States
Fans-first legislation
New York Affordable Concerts Act and California Fans First Act advancing face-value resale caps (2026).
//05 Market Opportunity
Market scale, regulatory pressure, and technology disruption — converging at once.
Portum addresses a market where billions of dollars are misallocated, trust is eroding, and regulation is forcing structural change — but where no enterprise-grade solution has yet emerged to serve all stakeholders with fairness, transparency, and control.
$117–238BOnline ticketing, projected 2034–35Industry reports
$0TGlobal E&M industry by 2029PwC, July 2025
0%Event-software CAGR, 2025–30Grand View Research, 2025
0%Secondary-market CAGR, 2026–31Mordor Intelligence, 2025
Share By the numbers
Live-experience premium
Live events are social currency — demand is structural, not cyclical.
Regulatory tailwinds
Antitrust, junk-fee rules, and resale caps reshape economics toward fair access.
Technology inflection
Mobile-first, digital identity, AI ops, and wallets are becoming standard.
Stakeholder urgency
Organizers and venues are actively seeking alternatives to a leaking system.