Lawmakers in Washington introduced the “Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act” – TICKET Act – on Thursday following a hearing on junk fees being charged to ticket buyers in the live event and sports marketplace. The bill, which echoes a Senate bill already under consideration, would require fees to be disclosed up front, bringing needed transparency on ticket prices for consumers.
Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., are co-sponsoring the bill.
“Fans are incredibly frustrated by how hard it has become to buy event tickets. With every ticketing debacle, from Beyoncé to Taylor Swift, and so many more, their frustration grows,” Schakowsky said in a statement. “Consumers deserve to be protected from fraudulent tickets, surprise costs, and excessive fees.”
If passed, the bill would require ticket sellers on both the primary and secondary ticket markets to disclose the base ticket price and all associated fees at the start of the purchase process. Currently, many ticketing vendors show one ticket price to draw in consumers, then add fees at the end of the transaction.
So-called “Junk fees” and “drip pricing” have been targeted by consumer advocates looking to improve the ticketing ecosystem for consumers for years. The topic was a major point of a 2019 hearing with the Federal Trade Commission, where representatives of multiple ticketing platforms said they would be happy to do all-in pricing on tickets, but it would have to be required across the board, as doing so voluntarily while competitors still hide fees leads to a competitive disadvantage, shown by StubHub’s brief tenure of showing fees while competitors hid them, only to lose market share.
President Joe Biden made “junk fee” reform a talking point this year, specifically mentioning ticketing as a part of that effort. Reforms on that front have also been a part of other legislation aimed at ticketing drafted by federal legislators in 2023, including the BOSS and SWIFT Act, which would offer reforms in multiple other areas of ticketing that consumer advocates say are desperately needed.
The House bill mirrors the Senate version of the TICKET Act, introduced earlier this spring by Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in the upper chamber. Cruz spoke out in support of both versions of the ticketing reform following Thursday’s hearing.
“The market for event tickets, like sports games and concerts, is one example where Americans would benefit from additional transparency and disclosure,” said Sen. Cruz, who also spoke out against much of the other proposed reform of “junk fees” for other industry proposed by the Biden Administration. “Every sports fan and concertgoer – myself included – can recall a time buying a ticket online expecting to pay an advertised price only to learn at checkout that the total cost was substantially higher because of additional fees that were not disclosed upfront.”
Sen. Cruz touted the support for all-in pricing on event tickets by multiple industry stakeholders, including StubHub and the Coalition for Ticket Fairness, which has been active in the promotion of pro-consumer ticket reforms for several years.
