Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives moved three pieces of legislation quickly through committee approvals and passed on to the senate this month, putting big changes to the regulatory ecosystem in the nation’s 5th most populous state on the table. All three bills are high on the wish list for Live Nation/Ticketmaster in the entertainment giant’s plans to rewrite ticketing regulations across the company to better serve its business interests.
The three pieces of legislation were passed through the House Consumer Protection, Technology, and Utilities committee on October 3, deal with so-called “bots” (HB 1378), “junk fees” on tickets (HB 636), and “speculative” ticketing (HB 1658)- though the last one goes much further than just that, bringing trojan horse provisions that could be leveraged by event operators and ticketing providers to effectively declare competing ticket resale platforms illegal.
All three bills were introduced this summer and passed through committee before much was known about them. They passed through the full PA House the same month, and now await consideration by the state Senate.
“When a consumer pays for a ticket, they have a right to assume the seller has that ticket in hand,” says Rep. Rob Matzie, author of HB 1658 as well as chair of the Consumer Protection, Technology, and Utilities Committee. “That’s not always the case because of speculative ticketing – a deceptive practice that allows resellers to sell tickets they don’t yet have but are ‘betting’ they can obtain. If the reseller fails to obtain the ticket, it’s the consumer who loses out. At best case, they may get a refund. At worst case, they’re out the price of the ticket and any other money they’ve laid out on travel, hotels, and other expenses.”
The bill, which is detailed by its own author as being backed by Live Nation and Ticketmaster , is being framed as a ban on the practice of listing tickets for sale before they’ve actually been purchased – effectively “shorting” the market in the parlance of the stock market. But beyond the quotes highlighting its regulation of that controversial marketing tactic, HB 1658 does far more to eliminate the competition of the already dominant players in the market.
“A secondary ticket platform may not use any of the following,” reads subsection C of the legislation. “The name of the exhibition of performance, including the name of a person, team, performance, group or entity scheduled to perform at a venue or event.”
The use of such terms on a resale platform would be something which the venue, team, or ticketing company can report to the authorities, which would result in potential penalties from the state’s Attorney General as well as civil action with penalties that would make it effectively impossible to operate within the state of Pennsylvania for Ticketmaster’s competitors.
Such legislation is a major tent pole of the so-called “FAIR Ticket Act” wish list pushed Live Nation and Ticketmaster, as well as by the Irving Azoff-affiliated “Fix The Tix” coalition, which brings independent organizations together to push for the Live Nation-backed reforms. They are pushing for a legislative climate that embraces Live Nation’s public relations stance that the many woes consumers face in live event ticketing climate today aren’t at all their fault or driven by their stranglehold over the industry. Instead, it is ticket resale that is the problem, and they should be empowered to serve as the regulator of their own competition.
“Unfortunately, many of the remedies proposed [by the Live Nation/Fix the Tix plans] would curtail the rights of consumers to buy and sell tickets on an open and competitive secondary marketplace, leading to ever more control by the dominant player in the industry,” says John Breyault of the National Consumers League, who has spoken out against their agenda as bad for consumers since they were introduced earlier this year. “The vertically-integrated Live Nation monopoly has become a $4.5 billion per year force in the secondary market. It has every incentive to use its dominance in primary ticketing, event promotion, venue ownership and operation, and artist management to curtail competition in the one part of the live event industry – secondary ticketing – that it does not already control.”
The other two bills are also serving up significant wish list items for Live Nation/Ticketmaster. “All-in pricing” is probably the least controversial potential reform for ticketing that is under consideration today – both primary and secondary ticket sellers have indicated they don’t object to the practice, provided it is required and not left up to individual companies to decide due to the inherent advantage that platforms hiding “junk fees” until late in the transaction have.
Regulating so-called “bots” is also relatively uncontroversial. The practice of using such programs is illegal at the federal level and has been since 2016. While companies like Live Nation/Ticketmaster and venues regularly claim them to be the reason fans miss out during high profile ticket sales, there is limited evidence outside of their aggressive public relations campaign saying so to prove this is fact. Fewer than five actual cases have been pursued against alleged “BOTS” Act violations at the federal level in nearly a decade of the rules being on the books.
Meanwhile, companies, venues and promoters have lobbied hard against actually being required to report alleged violations of the law for enforcement, which the Pennsylvania bill also lacks. It would, however, empower companies like Live Nation to file civil lawsuits against those it claims are sending “BOTS” their way.
There is no current timeline for the Pennsylvania State Senate to take up any of the three bills which passed the House. The higher chamber is majority Republican, while the Democratic party holds a slim majority in the House.
