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Minnesota seeks to have promoters, venues disclose exact number of withheld tickets
State legislators in Minnesota are about to consider a change in language to its almost year-old ticket resale legislation that would require disclosure of ticket holdbacks.
Bill HF2950, introduced this week by State Rep. Joe Atkins, is designed to help fans understand how many tickets are available for the events they want to see. For decades, holding back tickets, especially for concerts, has been the norm, but the practice has often confused fans because they don't know how many tickets are being put on sale at a given time.
The issue of ticket holdbacks exploded in New Jersey last year following reports of thousands of Bruce Springsteen tickets being withheld from the public.
"A provider of, or initial seller of, tickets for an event or venue in connection with an event for which tickets are or will be available for purchase by the general public must disclose to prospective purchasers no later than two weeks before the event how many tickets for the event were held back from sale to the general public," the proposed Minnesota bill states.
"'Tickets held back from sale to the general public' means the total number of tickets withheld from sale to the general public by or on behalf of a performer, promoter, sponsor, the venue of the performance, or any affiliate of, or person contracting with, any of them."
Ticket brokers have long complained that they are often made the villain when popular concerts sell out quickly, but in many cases nearly half of the tickets for a specific show are being held back for various reasons, such as credit cards promotions, fan clubs, radio station giveaways, sponsors or venue clients.
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Mr. Atkins (the bill's sponsor) is infamous for proposing bills that have little affect on real issues in Minnesota. Why does he not take up some real issues like reducing government overreaches and taxation? Such government intervention in your private businesses only hurts us all in the long run.
Can't we let the free markets decide this? I do not see why Mr. Atkins feels that government tentacles need to extend into every aspect of human life and commerce.
As a contractor, could you imagine if you had to declare how many hours you were withholding from the labor pool? As a retailer, you would not expect to be forced to list your inventory levels.
Mr. Atkins, in typical liberal fashion, has said that he knows how to run ticket sales better than the people who do it for a living. Using the same logic, he and his colleagues may as well start doing this for other businesses as well.
Sometimes the most important word our legislatures need to be taught is "No." It is time for us to start asking if foolish and useless laws such as this are even in the purview and jurisdiction of government.
As a private company selling a product, why should any provider of tickets have to disclose how many they're putting up for sale? Does Best Buy have to disclose how many Wii's they have in the back? Does WalMart have to put a sign out notifying you that even though there's only one unit on the shelf, they have a whole case that will be put out tonight, so don't panic and buy it because you think they're almost out?
I don't understand why we keep trying to make this more difficult than it is. Put whatever number of tickets you want onsale, for whatever price you want. And if someone buys it and wants to sell it for twice the price, let them. If they'd rather stand in front of all the bellyachers who are complaining it's not fair that they didn't get a ticket and light theirs on fire, let them do that, too. Whatever.
We keep trying to treat tickets like they're different than any other good or service available for sale and resale in this country. They shouldn't be.
The different here is that unlike Best Buy and Wal-Mart (for the most part) there isn't a cap on the number of products that can EVER be made available to the public. They can go back to their supplier and get more products and yes, the public will have to wait a day or a week to get more Wii's in stock for purchase but they will eventually be available. With tickets - it's quite different. A venue can only hold so many people and that artist may go on tour next year promoting the same or different album BUT they can never produce the very same show on the very same day of the year. It's a limited supply good with an expiration date. That's why the demand, quite often, exceeds the supply of tickets available and thus tickets because a hot topic from state to state. It is a consumer issue of misunderstanding and manipulation. The primary outlets only make X tickets available for Y reason. The public thinks the show is completely sold out and it's the secondary markets fault that prices are so outrageous when in fact, more tickets become available for sale the weeks leading up to the event at face value. This is typically less than what that consumer had to pay to get a ticket for the event through a secondary seller and now you've got an irate and estranged customer that wants someone to do something about these fallacies. I can't blame any Senator for trying to protect and educate consumers - can you?
Let's do simple math. A venue holds 12,000 fans for a concert. However 200,000 people want to see the concert. Guess what, there will be 188,000 people without a ticket. As much as you cry to your congressman or congresswoman, you are not going to change the fact that you can't fit 200,000 people into an arena that holds 12,000. This is not the fault of the primary seller and this is not the fault of the seller on the secondary market either. It is simply supply and demand. The fact that someone in politics feels it is necessary to intervene is absolutely rediculous.
I love the comment "The public thinks....it's the secondary markets fault that prices are so outrageous..." Wow, are you serious? Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years, the secondary market prices are outrageous for major sold out events. It is not the fault of the primary seller, the entity responsible for putting on the event, that brokers drive up prices in the secondary market. It is certainly not the fault of the primary seller, the entity responsible for putting on the event, if they are able to open up additional seats for a sold out show so that consumers can buy tickets at face value. Are you kidding me! The only person that would ever get upset if a customer was able to buy a great seats for face value from the primary seller would be a ticket broker, because they wanted to buy that same ticket and upsell it 300%.
Here is a news flash. The primary ticketing providers want to sell all of the tickets they possibly can. Ideally, they want them in the hands of "actual" fans that will be attending the event and not the cyber bullies out there buying up all of the tickets to resell on the secondary sites. There is no "consipiracy". The primary ticketing providers make X number of tickets because that is the number of tickets they are able to sell. Sure, there are pre-sales that take place prior to the public on-sale but if you are a true fan and want to see a show, you find a way to be a part of the pre-sale. It's not hard to get the password if you are willing to do any kind of leg work at all. People that participate in pre-sales are "general public".
Thanks for reading.
Let's take a look at what you just said:
"...you can't fit 200,000 people into an arena that holds 12,000. This is not the fault of the primary seller and this is not the fault of the seller on the secondary market either. It is simply supply and demand."
Then to go on to say:
"It is not the fault of the primary seller, the entity responsible for putting on the event, that brokers drive up prices in the secondary market."
If you studied even the basic forms of economics and you actually rationalized your very own opening words - the point is simple - the prices on the secondary market are dictated by one of the purest forms of supply and demand. Well pure is relative now isn't it? If the primary market wasn't holding any seats back for their so called 'reasons' then the public would have a clear cut look at the supply and demand for that particular event.
Need I point out that no one is holding a gun to anyone's head to buy a ticket for any amount of money. A fan chooses to purchase tickets for an event for face, above face or even below face because of a desire to see a live event. And somehow the primary market (not the "fan") forgets to see the good that the secondary market creates. It's called options. It's the ability to choose to pay a little more than the original ticket price not to have to sit around waiting for the 10am public on sale date only to find that all the floor seats "sold out" in 10 seconds and 200 level seats are the only available option for that show. And pre-sales? What a joke. You log on only to find crap seats. Busy, normal, everyday "fans" don't have time for things like this. They want to have options. Sure they can try and buy face value tickets from the primary market aka Ticketmaster/Live Nation but what if the primary market can't (errrr doesn't want to) offer any good seats at that particular moment? What if they don't have ANY seats for that event and they are trying to surprise a loved one with tickets to see his or her favorite artist? Thank you secondary market! And what about all of the events that are available for below this precious "face value"? 40% of the tickets sold on the secondary market are available below the original face value of that particular ticket! That is a fact. And that is a good thing for fans especially when times are tough. Do those moments get brushed under the rug just because of the Hannah Montana incidents of the world? I think not. The secondary market offers options for fans. They should be able to shop around and find a good deal. And yes, deal will always be relative to the capital they have and they seats they want the moment they want to buy them, but without options you have a monopoly. You put all that power in one company's hands and you will find that fans have less options and they are more likely to be bullied by this infamous primary market that has only their best interest at heart...what a crock!
And I'm still laughing about the cyber bullies comment. For a second there I forgot we were in America and the last time I checked the basic principles of buy and selling goods was considered doing business. Are you going to go jam up the stock brokers of the world now for trying to buy and resell stock for profit? What about all the oil companies that buy oil and then resell if for ridiculous mark-ups? No - let's look at bottled water. I can buy bottled water from a wholesaler for 10 cents per bottle but because I don't track down bottled water wholesalers to buy ten tons of bottled water at once and resort to buying my bottled water from the grocery store, I have to pay nearly $1.00 per bottle! That's 10 times the price of its "face value".
Think about it.
In your view, exactly what seats is the primary market holding back? If the main goal is to sell tickets for an event (hopefully selling it out), what would be the advantage of holding back these "mystery" seats from the public? Are you suggesting that the band shouldn't have tickets held back to take care of their guests/family? Are you suggesting that sponsors (who are the ones that make the tours happen in the first place) shouldn't have the ability to purchase tickets for the event out of some seats set aside for them? With any event, there are going to be legit holdbacks to take care of certain organizations that either help to promote the event or help make the event take place.
I will admit that I was incorrect when I stated that the primary market has nothing to do with the large mark-ups found in the secondary market. It actually plays a very big role, because the primary market is trying to make tickets available at reasonable prices so that the general public can see an event at a reasonable price. If the primary market were to charge actual market value for the prime seats for major events, then the mark-up in the secondary market wouldn't be near as high in comparison. (I'm talking about the major events here, not the lame events that the secondary market generously helps customers out by offering discounts)
Cyber bullies would be definied as those individuals that use bot software to circumvent the primary ticketing systems, which in America (or atleast certain states, including Minnesota) is illegal.
I'm not suggesting the secondary market does not provide a service as I realize that it does provide options for consumers.
In the end, my simple question would be this. If passed, what exactly will this bill help to accomplish?