Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed a massive economic development bill into law this week, ignoring significant opposition from consumer groups over language that dramatically changes the regulations in the state surrounding ticket sales and resale.
Opponents of the new rules say that the new language surrounding ticket transfer restrictions, in particular, grant enormous new power to companies like Ticketmaster seeking to eliminate consumer choice on how they use, share, and sell tickets they’ve purchased to events.
“I can’t resell it to anybody I want, I can’t give it to my friends or family if I can’t go and so it’s really harming fans,” says Dierdre Cummings of MASSPIRG. “Fans and ticket holders really got the wrong end of the deal.”
“Ticket sellers should have no right to prevent us from transferring our own tickets on our own terms. Requiring event tickets to be transferable is both a key consumer protection and common sense,” she added. “The big winners here are the big ticket sellers, not the sports fans or concert goers.”
Within the more than 300-page Economic Development bill signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Healy are multiple changes to the regulations specific to ticketing. Among them are measures that many consumer advocates have pushed for, including “all-in” price transparency rules, rules banning the use of so-called “bot” software programs to purchase tickets, and updates to the licensing framework for businesses and individuals buying and selling tickets in the state.
It is language specific to the ability for companies like Ticketmaster to lock tickets to the system through which they were originally sold that has drawn controversy.
While the version of the legislation passed by the House included strong language protecting consumer choice over the use, transfer and resale of tickets against box office lockdown and the version passed by the Senate did not address transfer restrictions at all, the conference committee deleted the language of the House bill and inserted new language explicitly granting the power to lock tickets to the primary sales platform, so long as those restrictions are disclosed before sale.
Such restrictions have been specifically referenced in the Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster filed earlier this year as a prime example of ways the entertainment giant “protect(s) its monopoly” by weaponizing the terms and conditions of a primary sale and the technology of the “SafeTix” system to exclude competition.
READ MORE: Ticketmaster “SafeTix” take central role in DOJ’s monopoly lawsuit
The signing of the bill expressly permits the use of such tactics, which puts state law into contradiction with its own Attorney General. Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell was among the many state legal leaders who signed on as co-plaintiffs with the Department of Justice in its lawsuit seeking to break up that alleged monopoly when it was first filed in the spring. As of November, there are 40 Attorneys General – representing states that contain around 90% of the U.S. population and range in political leaning from deep blue California to ruby red Texas – signed on as co-plaintiffs.
AG Campbell’s office has declined to comment to TicketNews in prior stories regarding this legislation. An email sent Thursday morning to her staff has not received a reply at publish time.
READ MORE: Concern grows over Ticketmaster-tilted bill’s conflict with antitrust lawsuit
“This language empowers Live Nation to bury anti-transferability provisions in terms and conditions that fans often quickly click through in their eagerness to purchase tickets to the next great event,” reads a letter sent by the Chamber of Progress to Gov. Healey last week. “Worse, Live Nation could use ticket terms to force purchases to resell tickets exclusively on their own platform, further entrenching their monopoly position in the live events ecosystem.”
Organizations including the National Consumers League, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Sports Fans Coalition joined Chamber of Progress and MASSPIRG in urging Gov. Healey’s office to demand changes to the language prior to her signing the bill this week. With that opportunity passed, they are pushing Massachusetts legislators to take quick action in the next session to “fix this anti-fan mistake” when the 2025-26 session begins.
Lawmakers involved in the bill have defended the language, indicating a perception that they have simply added a transparency requirement for actions that were already being taken by companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster, rather than explicitly permitting them by writing them into law.
“The only thing I see being changed is if you do get a ticket that’s non-transferable, it’s going to be displayed better,” said Sen. Barry Finegold, the lead Senate negotiator on the package.
He later added, “I don’t see much change for 95 to 99% of how tickets are done.”
A Live Nation Entertainment executive dismissed the consumer advocate backlash to the Massachusetts laws, reliably blaming ticket resale for all consumer concerns in ticketing, rather than the actions of that company.
Transfer restrictive systems like SafeTix and locking tickets to that marketplace for resale are “about whether the professional ticket brokers and the ticket resale sites that support them can use their bots and all their other tactics to grab thousands and thousands of tickets that were meant for real fans and instead put them on resale markets where they’re going to double the price,” says Dan Wall, who signed on as a company Vice President in 2023 after representing it in antitrust matters for years as outside counsel and leads its defense against the DOJ lawsuit. “This is not about a person who gets sick and can’t go to a show.”
Despite Wall’s defense, history shoes that transfer and resale restrictions bring with them significant consumer harm.
Research published by the Sports Fans Coalition shows that consumers saved more than $351 million on tickets purchased through resale marketplaces between 2017 and 2023. Those savings average $30 per ticket over primary market face values for tickets purchased on resale marketplaces over the past eight years. Red Sox fans have saved $7.4 million, followed closely by the $6.5 million saved by Celtics fans. Bruins fans saved $5.9 million, with Patriots fans saving $1.1 million during that span.
“Transferability saves fans money,” says SFC’s Brian Hess. “In Massachusetts alone, fans have saved $21 million [since 2017] because of transferability. On average, consumers in states that protect transfer save double over consumers in states that don’t.”
Even in instances where event organizers use a locked ticketing system that doesn’t allow for resale above the price paid, those restrictions harm consumers. This is because event organizers will regularly not allow tickets to be sold below a certain price “floor,” which allows them to move unsold box office tickets that are available for less than similar tickets listed for resale through that locked marketplace.
“[Price floors] meant I was unable to sell the tickets or recoup any money with the price being locked […] because why would anybody buy tickets for face value plus 10% when face value tickets exist,” one Ed Sheeran fan out £340 told The Guardian after being unable to resell tickets through the locked and price-controlled Twickets system.
The existence of competing resale platforms and free consumer transferability eliminates that issue. Look at a high profile example from Bruce Springsteen’s recent tour with the E Street Band. Tickets to a show at BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma were available for purchase through resale marketplaces for around $7, while tickets through the “official” Ticketmaster marketplace were listed for at minimum 10x that amount.
READ MORE: Tanking Tulsa date shows Springsteen using floor pricing on tour
Due to the widespread use of so-called “dynamic” surge pricing during peak demand, those who purchase tickets and subsequently can’t attend the event may have paid significantly higher than any so-called “face value” figure for their tickets. In practice, that translates to situations where a consumer who purchases tickets during peak demand for thousands of dollars is trying to sell them back through the locked marketplace, only to see nearby tickets listed for a fraction of that amount through the box office.
Using that same Tulsa concert as a key example, last-minute tickets to see that show on the floor were available through Ticketmaster for $229. A screenshot from a user complaining about the dynamic pricing used during the initial sales period for Springsteen’s tour showed that tickets in the same section and row were being sold at a surge price of $3,426. This meant that someone who bought tickets for the surged ticket price would be unable to sell their tickets that high, as they were restricted from lowering their tickets below the “price floor.”
“Resale price floors harm consumers twice-over,” John Breyault of the National Consumers League said at the time. “First, they keep discounted tickets from being available to fans who would otherwise be unable to attend a show. Second, they harm sellers who simply want to recoup at least a portion of their ticket investment when they are unable to attend an event. Fans should not be the ones to pay the price when Live Nation and its clients fail to anticipate lower-than-expected demand for an event.”
For now, Massachusetts consumers will likely have to contend with a far more restrictive ticket buying experience for events in their state. It remains to be seen whether or not a legislative solution to the transfer concerns will be pursued in the coming session or not.