Proms fans call for a crackdown on touts as £12 seats fetch £500

The Proms have been described by Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek as the world's largest and most democratic music festival. Running over eight weeks in the summer with a daily programme of orchestral concerts held mainly in the Royal Albert Hall, it is a firm fixture in classical music lovers' diaries.

Yet this year it appears that access to the events is not as democratic as it might be. The Observer has found that large numbers of tickets are being offered on "resale sites" for hundreds of pounds – many times their face value – much to the dismay of the BBC and the Royal Albert Hall, the only official seller.

One unofficial online site is offering seats for the Doctor Who-themed Prom on 14 July for £500, compared with the official flat-rate price of £12. A ticket for the first night on 12 July is offered for £400, against an original value of £38.

It is not just fans of the Proms who will be disappointed this summer. Many events in the coming months have already sold out – including the Rolling Stones' Hyde Park concert – with the only tickets available on websites fetching way above face value. Now campaigners are calling for the government to crack down on the touts.

Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, shadow minister for children and families, wants ticket-touting to be made illegal. "Families and music lovers are missing out on a British institution just so that a few individuals can make a fortune. The government needs to use the upcoming consumer rights bill to take action on touting and put the fans first."

Last weekend the BBC announced that a record 114,000 Proms tickets had sold since booking opened last week, a 17% rise on 2012. The two Doctor Who-themed Proms were the first to be announced as sold out, with special appearances by actor Matt Smith for the programme's 50th anniversary fuelling demand. But Fred Gilroy, a nurse practitioner in Sunderland, was so disappointed over his experience of trying to buy a ticket that he contacted the RAH and his local MP "to advise you of something I found to be quite … unethical".

He said: "At 9am [last Saturday] morning, the BBC Proms tickets went on sale. Two weeks ago I completed my Proms Planner online in order that when the tickets came on sale you [could] merely complete the purchase and pay for the tickets. After 10 minutes online, I was 'number 5,892' in the queue and before very long the tickets I wanted, the Doctor Who Proms, had sold out. My two kids, who are six and four, were both disappointed."

He tried online ticket-brokers and came across one offering a row of four seats for those Proms: "However, the price was £212.76 per ticket. The tickets have a face value of £12. That means someone can book their tickets and sell them at a highly inflated price. I feel, if this is not illegal, it is unethical and should be looked at, possibly capping the amount that someone can profit from further selling event tickets."

He said that this goes against what the Proms stand for and why they were started in the first place – to give music to all at affordable prices.

The RAH told him to try turning up to buy tickets which are made available on the day, but he cannot risk paying to travel from the north-east and staying overnight in London on the off-chance.

The BBC said that it does not use other ticket agents and it is "very difficult to manage unofficial selling".

A spokesman said: "This is an industry-wide, serious problem and we work closely with the RAH to do what we can to prevent it."

The RAH declined to comment, but ticket prices are a sensitive subject. It faced claims last year that two of its trustees profited from selling their debenture-seat tickets at hugely inflated prices. Debenture seats are owned on 999-year leases.

One resale company is Viagogo, which takes 15% of the ticket price from buyers and 10% from sellers.

Steve Roest, its head of European Business Development, said his company provides "a secure platform" where people buy and sell tickets: "We allow anyone to sell on Viagogo, so long as the ticket is valid."