As fans, musicians, and politicians alike attempt to declare independence from Live Nation Entertainment, several consumer advocacy groups have drafted the Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights.
Presented by organizations including the National Consumers League (one of the oldest advocacy groups in the country, founded in 1899) along with newer groups like Fan Freedom and Protect Ticket Rights, the Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights sets forth four inalienable rights.
- The Right to Transferability, where ticketholders decide how to use, sell or give away their tickets if they wish and not the entity that previously sold the tickets;
- The Right to Transparency, which includes all-in pricing and disclosures of relevant information for the purchasing decision;
- The Right to Set the Price, so that companies who originally sold the tickets cannot dictate to fans for what price they can or cannot resell their purchased tickets, and, lastly;
- The Right to a Fair Marketplace, where fans compete with actual humans, not illegal software bots, for tickets.
In order to ensure these rights, the collection of agencies included a number of practices for the ticketing industry to adopt. One of the most popular demands of ticketing giants is requiring all-in pricing, with fans seeing upfront how much their ticket will cost. The Bill of Rights also includes transparent disclosure of how many tickets are available to the general public during the on-sale, as well as the weeding out of bots with the activity reported to authorities.
These agencies also seek to ensure the consumer freedom of fans, demanding that no restrictions be placed on their ability to buy, sell, or transfer tickets after purchasing. The NFL has come under fire in recent years for its attempts to crack down on scalping by going so far as to revoke the season tickets of several Denver Broncos fans who sold their tickets when they couldn’t attend the games.
Related: Bruce Springsteen Tickets Plummet To $6 Days Ahead Of Concert
“Consumers deserve better when it comes to ticket sales, and it is clear that they are eager to see some change,” said Erin Witte, Director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation of America. “The Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights will level the playing field for consumers and end some of the most egregious practices that have historically plagued the ticket sales industry.”
This call for a Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights comes as several of the organizations including the National Consumers League and Sports Fan Coalition plead their case to Colorado lawmakers not to pass Senate Bill 60, per Colorado Politics. The legislation, which is supported by Ticketmaster but opposed by VividSeats and StubHub, would among other things outlaw “speculative ticketing” as well as a number of other deceptive practices including selling a ticket without possession of it, selling a ticket that doesn’t match its description, selling a ticket without disclosing the close of service charges and other fees, increasing the price of the ticket upon resale, and using bots to purchase large numbers of tickets (which was already federally outlawed in 2016).
The bill would also give venue operators the ability to revoke tickets bought or sold through deceptive practices. Critics of the bill— like VividSeats, StubHub, National Consumers League, and Sports Fan Coalition—say this will give Ticketmaster the ability to revoke tickets from competitors and further control the market. Legislators went back to clarify that an “event operator is a person who owns or operates a venue, not a venue’s primary ticket seller.” According to Colorado Politics, Ticketmaster would only be able to revoke tickets at the three venues it owns in the state: the Fillmore Auditorium, Marquis Theater, and Summit, all of which are in Denver.
Independent owners of many Colorado venues have offered an alternative side to Senate Bill 60. Proprietors from National Western Complex, Ball Arena, Larimer Lounge, and the Fox Theater recounted how often their venues have sat half empty during what was ostensibly a sold-out show after resellers used bots to buy up hundreds of tickets, only to ultimately be unable to offload the ticket inventory. The result leaves venues overstaffed, overstocked, and underfunded on what was expected to be a big night. According to the proprietors, the ability afforded to them by SB 60 to cancel tickets bought through deceptive means would give them a weapon in the fight against an unscrupulous secondary market.
“The venue is staffed up with a full production: bar, security, box office staff. What we thought was a sold-out show is only 60% to 70% full because the resellers couldn’t get rid of their tickets,” said David Weingarden with Z2 Entertainment and the Colorado Independent Venue Association. “Now, we’ve lost 30% to 40% of our anticipated food and beverage revenue, our labor costs are unnecessarily high. … Everybody loses except for the secondary ticket sellers.”
The Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights comes as Ticketmaster continues to suffer the fallout from Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour pre-sale that left millions of fans ticketless and angry. Recently, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass legislation limiting “junk fees” which include predatory hidden fees on concert and event tickets. The Department of Justice is reportedly in the midst of an anti-trust investigation into Live Nation Entertainment—the company formed in 2010 when ticketing giant Ticketmaster and the world’s largest concert promoter Live Nation Inc. came together as one company in a highly controversial merger. In the months since the Eras Tour disaster, the issue of fair competition in the ticketing market has become a bipartisan rallying cry, though no changes have yet been made.
Read the full Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights here. Read more about SB 60 and the arguments against it here.
The post Consumer Advocacy Groups Draft “Ticket Buyer Bill Of Rights” As Colorado Weights Controversial Ticketing Bill appeared first on L4LM.
