Indie Promoter Calls Out Live Nation Before US Senate in Hearing As NCL Drives to Push TICKET Act Forward — “Ticketing is Broken”

Entertainment Consumer advocates and indie promoters united on Capitol Hill in urging Senators to look at the bigger picture in a move to reform the ticketing industry. The hearings also included testy exchanges involving Kid Rock, Ticketmaster, and legislators.

Today, the subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation heard testimony from consumer advocates, indie promoters, Kid Rock, and a Live Nation executive in a hearing to discuss the live entertainment industry and “broken” ticket sale practices. Witnesses included Ticket Policy Forum director Brian Berry, Colorado Independent Venue Association (CIVA) chair and Z2 Entertainment’s David Weingarten, and Live Nation legal chief Dan Wall.

The hearing came at a tumultuous time for Live Nation, which is in the midst of a deceptive practices lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with allegations that Live Nation subsidiary Ticketmaster has been encouraging ticket brokers behind the scenes in order to collect fees on its secondary resale platform. Ticketmaster (and Live Nation) denies any wrongdoing, countering with allegations of its own that the whole case is a massive overstep of the 2016 BOTS Act.

The Senate is currently considering multiple proposals to regulate the secondary ticket industry, which include a plan from U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn to target automated bots used to scoop up mass quantities of tickets to resell to (sometimes) unsuspecting fans at marked-up prices.

Blackburn sponsored the MAIN Event Ticketing Act, which would reinforce existing federal laws and require live event juggernaut Live Nation to report successful bot attacks to the FTC. Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz, who convened the hearing alongside Blackburn, sponsored the bipartisan TICKET Act, which would require sellers to display the total cost of a ticket, including any fees, at the time of purchase.

Ahead of the hearing on reform in the live event industry, the National Consumers League (NCL) urged leaders in the U.S. Senate to prioritize passing the TICKET Act, which already overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives, and the MAIN Event Ticketing Act. Their move came in the form of a letter dated Tuesday, January 27, addressed to Senators Blackburn and John Hickenlooper, before today’s high-profile ticketing hearing.

“Consumers do not need another round of blame-shifting. They need Congress to act and to finally fix a live event ticketing system that has been broken by design, not by accident,” wrote NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud, John Breyault. “Passing the TICKET Act and strengthening it through legislation like the MAIN Event Act would finally begin to rebalance a marketplace that has been tilted against fans for far too long.”

NCL makes abundantly clear that it advocates for the passage of both the TICKET Act, which would ban hidden fees, speculative tickets, and other deceptive resale tactics, and the MAIN Event Ticketing Act, which would implement updated improvements to 2016’s BOTS Act.

“We didn’t choose to become policy advocates,” said David Weingarten. “We chose to run small businesses, employ local workers, and bring live music to our communities. But the scale and aggressiveness of the ticket scalping market has left us with no choice but to speak up.”

Weingarten called on Congress to act now to reform ticketing by banning speculative tickets with zero loopholes for schemes like “Seat Saver;” embracing the bipartisan movement on the state level by passing a national ban on resale above face value and cap on outrageous resale fees; banning deceptive URLs, spoof websites, and predatory search engine advertising; supporting the Department of Justice’s efforts to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster; and closing BOTS Act enforcement gaps by passing the MAIN Event Ticketing Act.

On the other side of the argument, Live Nation executive Dan Wall testified that the company does “more than anyone” to combat the use of bots, and that Live Nation supports a complete ban on the use of automated software to purchase tickets. Further, Wall said the company supports a ban on speculative ticket sales. Notably, Wall also used his testimony to refute the FTC’s claims that Ticketmaster is enabling brokers to inflate prices.

“Our actions speak louder than anything else,” said Wall. “We showed up, we walked the walk, we improved our defenses. Our bot defenses are second to none in the world.”

The hearing also included testimony from Kid Rock (real name Robert Ritchie), who told the committee that fans and artists alike have been “getting screwed by the ticketing system.”

“I’m in a unique position to testify because unlike most of my peers, I’m beholden to no one. No record companies, no managers, no corporate endorsements or deals,” said Ritchie. “To put it plainly, I ain’t scared.”

The artist told senators he supported reforms to the ticketing system, including artists having control over who sells tickets to their shows, resale tickets having price caps, and existing legislation regulating bots being more vigorously enforced.