By Alfred Branch, Jr.

Missouri ticket brokers, your day has come. For the first time, reselling an event ticket is legal in the state, allowing for a transparent, free market for ticketing.

The state has been at the center of the controversy over ticket reselling, mainly due to parents and fans clamoring over Hannah Montana tickets. State Attorney General Jay Nixon has aggressively gone after alleged abusers of the prior law prohibiting ticket reselling, and he still has a couple of lawsuits pending.

Previously, the Kansas City and St. Louis had separate local legislation that prohibited ticket reselling to events in those cities, but the new law wipes out those regulations.

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Throughout the year, several states have erased their ticket scalping laws, including Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. The main reason for the changes has been because of the internet and how states cannot easily legislate ticket reselling from outside of their borders.

However, there remain some opponents of the new law, namely state Rep. Ray Salva, who told the Kansas City Star that he plans to introduce a new bill to outlaw ticket reselling that would send the state back to black market days. He does not buy into the lifting of restrictions creating an open marketplace where ticket resale prices can come down due to the increased competition.

“Anyone who can interpret to me how ticket scalping has to do with economic development, please call me. I’d sure like to know,” he was quoted in the Kansas City Star.

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