In our newsletter, on our podcast, and across our forums, we talk a lot about the things that need to change in music and ways to address these issues. Or at least I do, endlessly.
However, rarely do I get a chance to take a step back and celebrate something good happening after years of campaigning.
The graft around a 'secondary ticket resale cap' to prevent people, botfarms and sometimes organised crime gangs profiting from tickets, has been a long time coming.
To be honest, I never thought this day would come.
I've always found touts making money from music pretty grim but it was Channel4's Viagogo Dispatches documentary (on YouTube here) that left me feeling so outraged that I engaged with Westminster politics for the first time. Back in 2012, I attended an event about ticket touts and have witnessed the long slow slog involved in cranking the wheels of injustice ever since.
At the heart of this has been Labour MP Sharon Hodgson who tried to make changes to scalping tickets as far back as 2011. You can follow some of the timeline of her Put Fans First campaigning here.
I've also watched on as the FanFairAlliance, run by Adam Webb, put in one helluva shift over the last decade to keep the issue of ticket touts on the boil in the media and in the halls of power.
When I saw the news that the UK's lacklustre, rudderless, right-wing lurching Labour government have finally come good on their promise to legislate against ticket touts I was quick to congratulate Adam.
And after I did that, I invited him on this week’s Drowned in Sound podcast so that you can all meet one of the driving forces behind ending touts and their bots ripping off fans.
It's another one of those podcast episodes that sounds like it might make you angry. Instead, the chat should provide you with some simple ways you can still get involved because it will likely take more nudges to get this new law over the line.
Listening back (it is a bit weird to do that but I have to sometimes to check there's nothing untoward), left me feeling hopeful about our collective power to take on the corporate juggernauts and criminal enterprises. Hope it gives you a taste of that feeling too.
You can watch the full episode on our YouTube here:
Or search for "Drowned in Sound" wherever you get your podcasts.
P.S. Aside from everything else, in this podcast we discuss how there are currently tickets on Viagogo for over £5,000 to see a cover band...