According to cnn.com, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order earlier today that is focused at ending ticket-price gouging for live entertainment. The order sees the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) working with Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that competitive laws are enforced in the concert and entertainment industry. The order also aims to uphold price transparency throughout all stages of the ticket-buying process for consumers.

Musician Kid Rock, wh0 appeared at the Republican National Convention last July, was present at the signing in the Oval Office.  “I want the fans to have fair ticket prices, to be able to go enjoy more shows,” Rock said. “I’d like to take my ticket price lower, but if I set my ticket prices low, these bots immediately eat them up and they resell for hundreds of dollars more and I’m just making these bad actors rich.”

“I’ve spoken to him over the years about it and it bothers him,” Trump said about Rock during the executive order’s signing. “It bothers a lot of other artists. They go out with a $100 ticket and it sells for $2,000 the following night.” Trump has admitted that he did not know much about price gouging “but I checked it out, and it is a big problem.”

The new order calls for more rigorous enforcement of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, which is a 2016 law that allows the FTC to take action against individuals and companies that use bots to buy concert tickets in bulk and resell them. Trump’s order builds upon efforts by the Biden administration to crack down on junk fees in the concert ticket space.

Back in last December, then-President Joe Biden’s FTC announced a final rule banning hidden “convenience” or “service” fees for concert tickets at checkout. America’s live concert and entertainment industry has a total nationwide economic impact of $132.6 billion and supports 913,000 jobs, according to 2019 data from Oxford Economics.

Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi