Ed Sheeran has enough clout to beat the touts — but we need a solution that works for everyone.

Ed Sheeran might be best known for his mild-mannered love songs, but his aggressive approach to ticketing fraud and unethical touting behaviour is anything but. The singer has taken an active stand against touts and resellers in an effort to ensure that fans pay face value for his concerts, cancelling more than 10,000 tickets for his upcoming stadium tour.

The controversial move has meant a laborious process for Sheeran’s team, who painstakingly trawled through all ticketing transactions in order to identify “known touts and multiple purchases”. Any purchases by known touts, or listed on secondary reseller sites like Viagogo, were revoked.

Fans who’d fallen foul of unethical practices aren’t being left out in the cold, though — Sheeran’s team is offering assistance in claiming refunds and accessing genuine tickets. So far, more than £240,000 has been returned to fans. Fans who are unaware their tickets have been cancelled will be met by a customer care team at the venue, and sold tickets at face value.

Sheeran conceived of the approach with the help of FanFair Alliance, a group of anti-touting lobbyists made up of a cross-section of managers, artists and industry bodies. Other large artists such as Arctic Monkeys, are planning to replicate the approach in upcoming tours.

While this approach is effective for large artists with a lot of clout who have the will and resources to go the extra mile on behalf of their fans, fraudulent ticketing and unethical touting practices will continue to harm smaller artists and their fans alike. And with the huge overheads and lack of scalability, it’s hard to see how this process could ever successfully transform the ticketing industry.

Alternative methods currently being explored to eradicate ticket fraud include legislation (the UK government is currently scrutinising business practices on secondary ticketing sites), and new technologies — such as blockchain. By leveraging the Aventus Protocol, an open standard built on the Ethereum blockchain, ticketing agencies can gain control and security over inventory. As every ticket is given a unique ID on the blockchain which can be tracked as it is transacted from rights holder to primary seller to secondary seller to audience, duplicate tickets become a thing of the past.

This provides a much-needed positive experience for fans, while avoiding the considerable overheads associated with Sheeran’s approach. At the same time, it continues to support consumer choice by allowing space for legitimate ticket resales between fans — something which a blanket-ban on all secondary sales lacks.

Events organisers including BlocSide Sports and Las Vegas’ Kind Heaven have recently announced their intention to release tickets to the blockchain using the Aventus Protocol, and are working with professional services provider Artos Systems to build blockchain-ready apps and platforms that will enable seamless, consumer-friendly access to tickets held on the blockchain.

“Event organisers can see the value in it, because it will enable them to effectively and efficiently manage and promote their ticketed events with significantly enhanced control over the ticketing supply chain,” says Aventus co-founder Alan Vey. “The protocol will also help them to foster greater trust and enhanced relationships with both ticketing partners and their customer base.”