With the 2012 Super Bowl headed to Indianapolis, officials are considering a new ordinance that would require all brokers within the city to obtain a license annually if they wish to resell tickets to sporting and entertainment events at prices above face value.
According to the ordinance’s sponsor Councilman Angel Rivera, the ordinance aims to eliminate counterfeit tickets.
“We want is to ensure honest brokers,” Rivera told TicketNews. “We are not limiting the prices that licensed ticket brokers charge. We will mandate a zone — hopefully a block — around the stadium of no ticket sales, and will mandate that brokers be licensed by the city, [with a] small fee of about $54 and a background check to make sure there is not a record of fraudulent activity.”
While the impending Super Bowl may be responsible for the current push for consumer protection, Rivera says that recent sporting events in Indianapolis, including last winter’s NCAA Final Four, have shown that there is a need for more consumer protection when it comes to ticket resale. According to Rivera, there have been minor ticketing incidents throughout the years, as well as “a particularly zealot few brokers getting on people [in the] lines into the Final Four last year.”
Under the terms of the proposed ordinance, only those brokers seeking to sell tickets above face value will have to be licensed. Those individuals who wish to sell extra tickets at face value will not be subject to the license requirement.
The proposed ordinance has already received a thumbs up from Indianapolis ticket broker Angelo Peduto with Circle City Tickets. Peduto told local television station WRTV that he welcomes the ordinance. “It will be a positive impact. It will hopefully keep those individuals who we had and want to do harm to the public from coming here.”
Indianapolis will not be the first city to propose such an ordinance. As the problem of counterfeit tickets grows in prevalence, many cities and states are adopting resolutions that seek to regulate the resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events. In recent years, both Green Bay and Georgia have passed such laws.
