Artists like Robbie Williams have fallen foul of ticket touts

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell launched the code, saying entertainment events risked becoming "the preserve of people with bulging wallets".

The measures include limiting the number of tickets purchased in a single sale and blacklisting known touts.

Event promoters welcomed the move, saying ticket touts have undermined confidence in the industry.

Speaking at a ticket touting summit on Wednesday, Ms Jowell said: "I want to see ticket agencies squeezing ticket touts out of business to protect genuine fans from being frozen out of the market."

'Strike a balance'

The first phase of the initiative aims to prevent tickets from falling into the hands of touts by asking ticket agencies to introduce an effective returns policy.

The government has no plans to make touting illegal but is looking to identify ways of making it unattractive for touts to operate.

"We need to strike a balance between stamping out organised touts who buy in bulk and the real fan who for one reason or another decides they can't go to an event and need to sell on their ticket," a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said.

Concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith, who attended the summit, said promoters have agreed to ban the sale of non-existent tickets, or futures, where the event has not been confirmed or tickets have not yet been made available.