A gaggle of greater than 250 distinguished musical artists and teams have signed a letter urging the US Senate to cross a complete invoice to reform ticketing practices.
The letter, organized by Repair The Tix, a coalition of over 30 trade organizations spearheaded by the Nationwide Impartial Venue Affiliation (NIVA), has the assist of Billie Eilish, Inexperienced Day, Lorde and Sia, amongst others.
It calls on lawmakers to cross the Followers First Act, a invoice launched within the Senate final December that seeks to extend protections for shoppers who buy tickets whereas limiting “predatory practices” by ticket resellers, similar to bot-driven mass purchases of tickets which might be then resold to the general public at larger costs.
Different signatories embody Cyndi Lauper, Dave Matthews, Fall Out Boy, Duran Duran, Becky G, Main Lazer, MGMT, Ben Folds, Diplo, the Pixies and the Indigo Women.
“We’re becoming a member of collectively to say that the present system is damaged: predatory resellers and secondary platforms have interaction in misleading ticketing practices to inflate ticket costs and deprive followers of the possibility to see their favourite artists at a good value,” states the letter, which was addressed to Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democratic Chair of the Senate’s Commerce Committee, in addition to Sen. Ted Cruz, the rating Republican on the committee.
“Predatory resellers have gone unregulated whereas siphoning cash from the reside leisure ecosystem for his or her sole profit. They use unlawful bots, speculative ticket listings, and deceitful promoting, which trigger actual hurt,” the letter continued.
The invoice is targeted on three key areas of reform:
- Ticket value transparency, together with necessities that the ultimate value of a ticket, together with charges, is offered earlier than buy; a full breakdown of ticket prices and phrases of buy is offered; seating particulars are specified; and the vendor determine whether or not they’re the unique vendor.
- Client safety, together with strengthening enforcement of earlier legal guidelines towards bot utilization; proof of buy delivered to ticket patrons inside 24 hours; and full refunds for occasion cancellations.
- Instruments to cease dangerous actors, together with civil penalties on unlawful resellers; a complaint-reporting web site for ticket patrons; a ban on speculative tickets (i.e., resellers promoting tickets they haven’t but purchased); sanctions on misleading web sites and fraudulent sellers; obligatory reporting of violations to the Federal Commerce Fee; and a mandate for the FBI to share ticketing violation data.
The Senate invoice was launched by a bipartisan group of lawmakers composed of Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Peter Welch, and Ben Ray Lujan, and Republican Sens. John Cornyn, Marsha Blackburn, and Roger Wicker.
It has the backing of quite a few trade teams, together with the Recording Academy, the Recording Trade Affiliation of America ( RIAA [387 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/firms/riaa/”>RIAA), Songwriters of North America, the Artists Rights Alliance, and the Display screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).
It additionally has the assist of ticketing firms Eventbrite [32 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/firms/eventbrite/”>Eventbrite and Ticketmaster.
“The present system is damaged: predatory resellers and secondary platforms have interaction in misleading ticketing practices to inflate ticket costs and deprive followers of the possibility to see their favourite artists at a good value.”
Letter to Sens. Cantwell and Cruz, from 250+ artists
“We assist the Followers First Act and welcome laws that brings constructive reform to reside occasion ticketing,” Ticketmaster proprietor Stay Nation [516 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/firms/live-nation/”>Stay Nation stated in December.
“We imagine it’s essential Congress acts to guard followers and artists from predatory resale practices, and have lengthy supported a federal all-in pricing mandate, banning speculative ticketing and misleading web sites, in addition to different measures.”
Stay Nation has already begun implementing sure elements of the invoice, similar to “all-in” pricing that shows the ultimate value of a ticket earlier than buy.
Nevertheless, the Followers First Act doesn’t handle a few of the extra controversial practices of main ticket sellers, such because the “dynamic pricing” mannequin utilized by Ticketmaster, which adjusts ticket costs in actual time primarily based on demand. This led to the 2022 controversy over $5,000 tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s tour.
Stay Nation additionally got here in for criticism in 2022 when Ticketmaster’s system crashed amid large demand for tickets to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour – although CEO Michael Rapino [127 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/individuals/michael-rapino/”>Michael Rapino later defined that the crash needed to do with Ticketmaster’s efforts at stopping bots from shopping for out the tickets.
“Predatory resellers have gone unregulated whereas siphoning cash from the reside leisure ecosystem for his or her sole profit.”
Letter to Sens. Cantwell and Cruz, from 250+ artists
Some lawmakers have argued that Ticketmaster’s dominant place within the ticket market is a main explanation for excessive ticket costs – one thing the corporate has vehemently denied.
The corporate has reportedly been underneath antitrust investigation by the US Justice Division for the previous few years. Current reviews within the Wall Avenue Journal and the Washington Put up have stated the DoJ is ready to file an antitrust lawsuit towards the corporate – although related reviews have emerged over the previous few years, with no subsequent lawsuit filed.
Ticketmaster has repeatedly argued that its skill to set costs could be very restricted.
“Tickets are literally priced by artists and [sports] groups. It’s their present, they get to determine what it prices to get in,” Stay Nation’s head of company affairs Dan Wall wrote earlier this 12 months.
“The NFL tickets on Ticketmaster had been priced by the house groups, live performance tickets had been priced by the performer’s enterprise groups, Monster Jam tickets had been priced by its producer (Feld Leisure), and so forth.”
The same invoice to the Followers First Act was tabled within the Home of Representatives final 12 months by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The Transparency In Fees for Key Occasions Ticketing (TICKET) Act would require full disclosure of a ticket’s closing value earlier than buy, and would ban “speculative” ticket promoting, just like the Followers First Act.Music Enterprise Worldwide