The schedule has been set for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s hearing on the ticketing ecosystem, which will take place on Wednesday, February 26 in Washington D.C. Titled “In the Dark: Lack of Transparency in the Live Event Ticketing Industry,” the hearing will kick off at 10 AM at a meeting of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee at the Rayburn House Office Building.
“We launched our bipartisan investigation because of concerns about potentially unfair and deceptive practices occurring in the primary and secondary ticket marketplace,” reads a quote credited to Energy and Commerce Committee Chariman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO). “Unfortunately, the investigation has thus far validated our concerns.”
“Consumers face a number of disturbing practices in the industry, including a systemic lack of transparency and fairness. This hearing will give us the opportunity to hear directly from companies about troubling practices in the live event ticketing marketplace and push them to put consumers first going forward.”
Given the statement from Reps. Pallone and DeGette (and the title of the hearing), it is expected that the hearing will have a strong focus on the lack of transparency consumers face in the ticketing world, and how it can be used to mislead consumers related to the available inventory for an event relative to the perceived demand. Another point of emphasis to be expected is the emerging trend of artist-imposed restrictions on ticket transfer and the detrimental impact that has on consumer rights.
Other expected hearing topics based off the questions from lawmakers include the widespread use of fees and the practices of hiding them until the final step of the purchase process, speculative ticket listings, and attempts by venues and primary ticket vendors to make the use of event or venue names in URLs by competitors unlawful.
Beyond that, several additional areas of concern are expected to be raised at the hearing, according to TicketNews sources. Their negative impact to consumers of imposed price floors on primary-aligned resale marketplaces is likely to be raised, as well as what some consider discriminatory practices related to charging variable pricing by gender common to certain events are likely to be discussed. Similarly, the use of mobile-restricted ticketing and the role that plays in the large-scale harvesting of consumer data sold without disclosure to primary ticket platform marketing partners will likely be debated as well.
Representatives of both the primary and secondary ticketing world are expected to provide testimony for the committee. Live Nation, Anschulz Entertainment Group (AEG), Tickets.com, TicketNetwork, StubHub and VividSeats all received requests for documents and responses to questions from the committee in November.
Additional information related to the hearing will be posted on the subcommittee page here as the event approaches.
Last Updated on February 20, 2020 by Dave Clark
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The primary market is sure to argue for increased transparency/regulations on the secondary market to take the heat off themselves for all the deceptive practices they engage in.
The secondary market has two areas that should be addressed.
First, should be all in pricing right up front except for the shipping fees for the different choices to add in at the end.
Second is that spec seats should come with a disclaimer like Vivid uses “This listing describes tickets that the seller does not own, but is offering to procure for you. After you place your order and your order is confirmed, we guarantee that your tickets will be within the zone or section listed or one comparable and that you will receive these tickets in time for the event or your money back. Orders exceeding four tickets may be split up into different rows within the requested zone or section. Specific seats are not assigned until delivery”.
END OF STORY WITH THIS INFO ADDED.
The primary market wants to protect their ability to control pricing and distribution at all costs. They are the true thieves with price floors on resale, restrictions on resale through their designated marketplaces, changing restrictions after the on sale, dynamic pricing where you choose tickets at one price only to have the price increase when the seats hit your cart, creating fake scarcity with huge holdbacks only to put the seats up as Platinum with a huge price jump, etc.
well spoken and there corruption goes way way deeper! Not to mention the NFL owners need to be exposed ASAP to everyone! These guys own the largest most profitable tickets in the world while pretending they care about fans. Yet there ripping off all there fans and totally hiding everything in Plain sight!!