“We’re On the Side of the Fan” – CTF Opens With Legislative Panel

There are few things that more people agree on more unanimously than the fact that the ticketing process is an impossible mess for the consumer. An endless cycle of angry reactions to messy ticket sales dominate news coverage and social media, and everyone has their favorite scapecoat.

Shoppers hate Ticketmaster and its widespread use of price inflation systems and restrictions on transfer. Ticketmaster and venues say everything wrong is because of “bots” and ticket resellers. Resale professionals point to unethical and misleading holdback of tickets designed to deceive consumers about scarcity of supply to drive up ticket prices.

As a result, lawmakers have spent significant time and effort at both the state and federal level to address those concerns – and the Coalition for Ticket Fairness conference kicked off Wednesday with a panel discussing that legislative process and where things stand.

“We all know that the onsale is broken,” says Brian Berry, who serves as Advocacy Director of Protect Ticket Rights, one of six thought leaders on the legislative panel discussion moderated by Jonathan McCollumn of the lobbying firm Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron. “The bills that CTF supports are bills that solve the biggest problem in ticketing, which is the fans’ access to the tickets themselves.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the opening panel was focused on the ongoing legislative efforts in the ticketing industry. CTF was founded nearly a decade ago with a focus on advocating for better ticketing regulations, and that remains its core purpose to this day.

Wednesday’s legislative panel is just one of multiple sessions at the multi-day affair that will offer insight into the lawmaking process and how industry professionals can participate at both local and national levels. Other panelists included Gary Adler – Executive director of the National Association of Ticket Brokers, Jake Roach – Federal Government Relations AD at DHC, Brian Hess – Executive Director of the Sports Fans Coalition, Nicole Weingartner – New York Government Affairs head at DHC, and Illinois consultant and lobbyist Craig Willert.

“We were excited to welcome everyone to the opening day of the CTF 2025 annual conference… an important gathering of industry leaders, live event fan advocates, and stakeholders,” says CTF Executive Director Dana McLean. “We are committed to ensuring a transparent, competitive, and consumer-friendly ticketing marketplace. This conference is an opportunity to collaborate, share insights, and drive meaningful change. Together we are here to learn and work toward a system that prioritizes fairness, innovation, and the rights of fans everywhere.”

While reform in ticketing has been an open conversation for years, that conversation and the public attention to it has gotten much more prominent in the last couple of years, particularly in the wake of Taylor Swift’s high profile Eras Tour ticketing disaster in the fall of 2022. A January 2023 Senate Judiciary hearing saw Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s role in that mess receive national scrutiny, followed by a massive antitrust lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice.

FURTHER READING: Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation/Ticketmaster

Despite that, company’s enormous lobbying dollar has helped prevent any significant ticketing reform to cross the finish line despite strong consumer support.

Part of the problem, according to panelists, is in the messaging. Ticket marketplaces can share statistics that make it abundantly clear how much consumers save with access to open ticket resale markets, and equally clear how infrequently any issues occur – and that consumers are universally made whole when an order goes wrong on a legit resale marketplace. But stories detailing a worst-case scenario involving travel to an event and tickets not working or never being delivered are regularly pushed by a that well-funded lobbying arm seeking to put its thumb on the scales of future regulation involving tickets.

“Unless a proposed law makes reselling tickets harder, forces resale to the platform of the venue’s choice, or bans resale outright, [the venue and artist management lobbying efforts] say it’s bad,” Berry told the audience. “We disagree.”

A key encapsulation of this was evidenced with the Ticket Act. This legislation, which would mandate transparent (all-in) ticket pricing display across the U.S., introduce new rules regarding marketplace disclosures, was universally supported when it was introduced. Venues and primary box office operators were on board with the commonsense improvements to ticketing for consumers. But then, support for the Live Nation-backed “Fans First Act” fell apart.

“It was really something, how a consensus developed behind the Ticket Act, only to see groups supported by companies like Ticketmaster and their allies all decide at the last minute they didn’t want to support it,” said Brian Hess. The TICKET Act had been on the verge of passage as part of an end of year government funding bill, only to have that effort spiked at the last minute.

FURTHER READING: Venue Lobby reverses support; seeks to kill bipartisan TICKET Act

With a new Congress in Washington and state houses across the country, 2025 brings an open playing field for the ticketing business, and new opportunities to bring positive change for consumers. The TICKET Act has once again been introduced, and is out of committee and awaiting consideration by the Senate.

For further positive momentum, panelists agreed, those within the ticketing business need to continue what they’ve always done – providing a service to their clients – while also making sure to become a resource for the lawmakers in their area as this process unfolds.

CTF 2025 continues throughout the day Thursday with further panels examining legislative priorities in the coming year, as well as technological innovations and products for those in the business of ticket distribution. TicketNews will be on hand with stories throughout the next few days.