Amid current interest in their operations within US politics, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have called on Congress to pass legislation that will target the secondary ticket market and penalize them more harshly. “If there’s any chance of improving ticketing for fans and artists, we all need to focus on the facts,” shared Live Nation.
The company has submitted more than 35 pages of information to provide greater context and transparency to policymakers on the industry. “These include the fact that this industry is more competitive than ever, Ticketmaster has actually lost market share since the 2010 merger, not gained it; and that venues set and keep most of the fees associated with tickets and are increasingly taking an ever-larger share,” continued Live Nation.
Live Nation has stressed that it supported an industry-wide move to “all-in pricing,” where ticketing platforms declare the price of a ticket including all and any fees upfront. This would need to be achieved through regulation that ensures companies adopt all-in pricing aren’t disadvantaged by looking more expensive. President Joe Biden recently called on ticketing companies to limit these fees that are added to ticket prices.
Live Nation concluded their statement on this matter by saying: “We believe that policymakers would benefit from asking more questions about the chaos caused by scalpers and the resale-first side of the industry. We remain committed to working with lawmakers on developing reforms that will benefit fans and artists including those outlined in a Fair Ticketing Act.” The Fair Ticketing Act would involve expanding existing rules banning touts, or scalpers, from buying up tickets from primary sites using bots, a ban on speculative selling, or advertising tickets that haven’t been acquired yet, and cracking down on resale sites that don’t enforce those rules or respect an artist’s preferences regarding how they sell their tickets.
Lastly, Live Nation has proposed that artists should decide re-sale rules for their shows, suggesting lawmakers should “protect artists’ ability to use face-value exchanges and limited transfer to keep pricing lower for fans, and prevent scalpers from exploiting fans.” This controversy really came to light in November when fans reported lengthy wait times, website outages and hyper-inflated prices on resale sites when Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour tickets went on sale. (NME)
Leave a Comment