Fix the Tix Coalition Calls for TICKET Act Changes to Protect Consumers: ‘It Contains Gaps’
A letter authored by Fix the Tix chairman Stephen Parker implores Congress to strengthen the bill aimed at increasing price transparency, banning speculative ticket sales and more.
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The Fix the Tix coalition is sounding the alarm about the TICKET Act currently making its way through the U.S. Senate, warning that the current bill contains ambiguous language that threatens to undo progress the group has made at cleaning up the event ticket space. Fix the Tix leaders are now urging Congress to work with the group to amend the bill and update language around speculative ticketing, fan clubs and misleading websites.
“While we appreciate the bill’s purpose to protect and inform fans, it contains gaps that, if unaddressed, will undermine both consumer protections and a fair marketplace,” reads the letter addressed to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who heads the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which held a markup session for the TICKET Act on Wednesday (Feb. 5).
Reintroduced earlier this year by Senator Eric Schmidt (R-Missouri), the TICKET Act mandates all-in pricing for most ticket sellers, bars speculative ticket listings on sites like StubHub and empowers the Federal Trade Commission to pursue violations of the BOTS Act, which has only been enforced once since passing in 2016, according to songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle.
While groups like the Fix the Tix coalition support the legislation in principle, concerns persist that it “undercuts several strong state consumer protection laws already passed in Maryland, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Arizona,” reads the Tuesday (Feb. 4) letter authored by Stephen Parker, the chairman of the Fix The Tix coalition and the executive director of the National Independent Venues Association. Parker also hints that members of his coalition — which includes The Recording Academy, the National Independent Talent Organization and the Artists Rights Alliance — feel left out and want to play a more active role in the legislative process.
“We encourage the Committee to hold a dedicated hearing or otherwise engage” members of the Fix the Tix coalition, Parker wrote, adding that “their real-life expertise can help craft a stronger, more effective TICKET Act” and noting his dismay with the increasing role the “predatory reseller lobby and the ‘consumer groups’ they fund to do their bidding” have played in drafting the bill.
The legislation’s central weakness comes from what it doesn’t include. In his letter, Parker urges Cruz to “bar predatory resellers from exploiting fan clubs or other restricted presales” and “prohibit listing or reselling tickets before the official public on-sale date” — a practice known as speculative ticketing that has long been criticized by consumer rights groups. In total, Parker offers up a half-dozen prescriptive changes for the bill in order to avoid strengthening the “very abuses it sets out to prevent.”
“We look forward to an open process that prioritizes the views of the artists, fans, and venue community that do all the work and take on all the risk to put on live shows,” Parker concludes.
The letter can be read in its entirety here.
