Live concerts are meant to be joyous, celebratory events. But buying tickets for those concerts has become an experience to dread, up there with a root canal. Your favorite artist is on tour, but can you get the right presale code to nab tickets before the good seats are gone? Or get any seats before the scalpers take most of them? Seemingly endless fees tacked on by the ticket sales companies only make things worse.
Now, some lawmakers are considering laws to make ticket-pricing transparent, to help buyers weary of concert-ticket sticker shock. The proposed law was inspired by Taylor Swift and the recent fiasco involving sales to her Eras tour.
Even in a world with a myriad of music streaming services, the clamor for online tickets reveals that fans still love going to live shows. They’re also excited for everything Taylor Swift, as shown by the recent furor about her attendance at Super Bowl LVIII, and over her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, which features four editions and three different bonus tracks. But when it comes to the actual ticket buying, it seems as if fans need an advanced degree just to land a pair of decent seats.
Change could be coming
Minnesota is one of the states that is considering a bill that would require ticket sellers to disclose the full price of a ticket, including fees, early in the online buying process. State Rep. Kelly Moller’s bill would also require resellers to reveal who they are, to prevent consumers from being fooled into thinking they’re buying from the original seller, and require sellers to report when they detect ticket bots grabbing tickets for a show. No surprise, Moller has hard-won experience with these issues.
“The genesis of this bill was really my experience being a Swiftie and trying to get tickets to the Eras tour,” Moller told the Minnesota House Judiciary Committee in February. The bill was passed by that committee and sent on to the House Commerce Committee.
The North Star State isn’t alone….
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