At some point you’ve probably tried to buy tickets to a concert or a game, and maybe you’ve seen some eye-popping prices for four or five figures.
The question here — who is responsible for those sky-high prices? The issue is super complicated with everyone pointing fingers at each other, but pretty much everyone agrees, something needs to be done.
The D.C. Council unanimously voted yes Tuesday on a bill that aims to make tickets cheaper.
But first, some quick background:
There are two types of ticket sellers. The first is primary sellers such as Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation.
And then you have secondary resellers. Ticketmaster also does that, and then you also have platforms like Stubhub, Vivid Seats and Seatgeek.
Some concert venues and artists say the secondary market is the reason resale tickets are so expensive.
“Right now the scalping is completely out of control, and it is taking all the money out of the city and into the scalpers’ pockets,” said Audrey Fix Shaefer with IMP Entertainment.
The D.C. Council bill aimed at tackling the issue is called Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment, or RESALE. It would ban bot scalpers, speculative tickets — which is where people or companies sell tickets they don’t have yet, and surveillance pricing — where websites use your data to decide how much to charge you.
The bill would also put a 10% price cap on resale tickets. Resellers would have to reveal the original price they paid, and anyone who resells 50 or more tickets must register as a business with the District.
“Our resale act is gonna help make tickets, going out to a concert, going out to the theatre, a lot more affordable for D.C. residents and protect our venues in the process,” said councilmember Charles Allen.
However, the trade group that represents resellers like StubHub said it believes the bill will only drive scalping underground.
“You want to set the price higher, you’ll go to Facebook Marketplace, you’ll go to Craigslist. We’ve seen this in other markets, so it’s going to drive fraud through the roof in D.C.,” said Brian Berry, the executive director of the Ticket Policy Forum.
The reseller trade group also says it believes the primary market is the problem and that prices are so high because of Ticketmaster. Back in April, a federal jury ruled it was an illegal monopoly. There will be a separate trial in the future to figure out what the penalties will be.
D.C. also recently filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster for hidden fees and countdown timers that created fake pressure to buy. Ticketmaster ended up settling for $9.9 million. Most of the money will go towards customer refunds. The company also agreed it’ll now show the full price up front.
In a statement to News4, Live Nation said, “We support legislation that addresses the real issues in ticketing: predatory resale sites and scalpers who scam fans and siphon millions from the live event experience while contributing nothing back. That’s why we support banning speculative ticketing and efforts to cap resale prices.”
As far as the D.C. bill on ticket reselling, it still needs to be voted on a second time on July 14, and it could change before then.
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