Donald Trump intervention leaves TICKET Act legislation in limbo

The TICKET Act in the US, designed to increase pricing transparency, has been left in limbo after an intervention from President-Elect Donald Trump.

The bill would also aim to ban speculative ticketing practices in the US, and was passed in the House Of Representatives earlier this year, with it now needing to pass through the Senate to be written into law.

The bill arrived in the Senate earlier this week, and despite carrying bipartisan support, its progress was scuppered on Wednesday (December 18) when Trump and his advisors, including Elon Musk, demanded an extra wave of spending cuts.

A new revised spending bill was presented to the Senate on Thursday (December 19), but it excluded the TICKET Act and was nevertheless rejected, with 38 Republicans joining the Democrats in opposing it. A further revised spending bill was passed on Friday (December 20) which also failed to include the TICKET Act.

The bill is now left in limbo, with Congress likely to move on to other matters.

The TICKET Act was designed to mandate that all ticket vendors display the “all-in” price at the point of sale and ban them from selling tickets that they did not have in hand – the practice known as speculative ticketing. It would also force the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce an act that prevents scalpers from using bots to secure tickets.

The TICKET Act was not universally supported, however. Stephen Parker, executive director of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) said: “Congressional leaders should be commended for seeking to fix ticketing. While their efforts were well-meaning, the TICKET Act would have taken us backwards. Consumers deserve a real ban on speculative ticketing, not one with a loophole that renders it ineffective.”

“Federal ticketing policy cannot pass without the support of the artists, stages, and fans that make up the heart of the live music ecosystem,” he added. “Predatory resellers and platforms are not even part of live performance and prey on our sector to bloat their profits. Unlike this week, we hope that the next Congress will listen to the creators, small businesses, and real consumers – without whom, there would be no shows to sell tickets to.”

The political process comes just days after the FTC announced a separate ban on hidden concert fees in the US. The bill put a halt to “junk fees” being implemented across multiple industries – including online ticket sales. With new regulations, platforms selling tickets are required to display all mandatory fees upfront during the buying process, instead of them appearing only during the checkout stage.

While the FTC has announced the ban on hidden concert fees, it should be noted that Live Nation and Ticketmaster responded to complaints last year, and implemented a transparent, all-in pricing model in September 2023. Since then, they have gone on to report an eight per cent increase in sales between then and May 2024.

The moves in Congress come just days after Kid Rock met with Trump’s Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, a meeting in which he promised to take aim at the current state of the concert ticket industry.

“Gonna open a can of whoop ass on the bots, scalpers, venues, ticketing companies, managers and artists alike who rip off and deceive the public with the horse shit that has gone on for decades and only gotten worse,” he wrote on Instagram.

The issue of hidden and unexpected fees when it comes to buying concert tickets isn’t exclusive to the US, as this year saw the UK launch an investigation into the use of “dynamic pricing”.

The conversation was spearheaded by the news of an Oasis reunion tour and the scramble for concert tickets that followed. During the tumultuous sale for UK and Ireland shows, some fans were disappointed to find huge price increases due to Ticketmaster’s surge pricing scheme – meaning that the price was unexpectedly hiked up following huge demand.

The backlash soon led to the topic being brought to the government, and the Sale Of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill  – which would pressure companies to share the maximum prices of tickets with fans – was proposed by Labour MP Rupa Huq.

The debate around the cost of concert tickets – namely the lack of transparency with customers – has continued to be a topic of discussion across the UK. For example, the issue was brought to the Advertising Standards Agency and the European Commission, with a separate call for an investigation brought by the UK government. Experts also suggested that not warning Oasis fans of the dynamic pricing may breach consumer law.

The post Donald Trump intervention leaves TICKET Act legislation in limbo appeared first on NME.