When It Comes to Ticketing Legislation, Price Caps Are Just One Puzzle Piece

Despite heroic efforts, California legislators recently failed to follow Maine, Vermont, and Washington, DC, in passing a 10% resale price cap. But it’s not just California: ambitious price-cap bills simply haven’t succeeded in bigger markets, while a very different legislative trajectory has emerged.

And just like that, the ‘California Fans First Act’ (AB 1720) died in committee, leaving a big price-cap bill unrealized. But despite the defeat, a narrower ticketing reform passed the legislature and now awaits Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature before September 30th.

So why did this lesser-known bill survive, and why? Welcome to the other raging fight in California ticketing legislation, one that has garnered far less attention.

In its original state, California Assembly Bill 1349 would have banned the sale of speculative tickets, which are tickets not actually owned by a seller at the time of listing. It was hailed as an important consumer-protection bill to curb misleading listings on secondary resale markets.

Now, after a series of late amendments, music industry groups, including the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), have revoked their support and are asking the governor to veto the bill.

But despite the weakened language, AB 1349 still requires secondary resale sites to take measures to prevent speculative ticket sales. It prohibits primary ticket sellers from listing speculative ticket sales, with some exemptions.

Perhaps that’s a big deal, though you’d never know by the relatively mellow coverage and discussion surrounding the bill.
Resale price caps have recently garnered a lot of attention, with Massachusetts’ new price-cap proposal backed by high-profile supporters including its namesake Noah Kahan. However, only three smaller concert markets have successfully passed price-cap bills, while more than triple that number of states have pushed through speculative ticketing bans in recent years.

Today, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, DC, all have speculative ticketing bans on the books. Multiple other states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation to address the issue. ​

Speculative or ‘ghost’ ticket listings include seats that haven’t been put up for official sale yet, including seats that don’t physically exist at venues. Many existing state laws took effect after the ticketing chaos surrounding Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. But this spring, a slew of fake World Cup ticket listings reignited widespread attention to the issue, as fans traveled far distances just to discover that their seat didn’t exist.

StubHub’s seller policies state that users may not list speculative tickets. Yet the company has opposed bills that would explicitly ban the practice and establish civil liability, including California’s AB 1349. According to groups like NIVA, heavy lobbying dollars from StubHub and others have bastardized the bill, which now “prioritizes predatory resellers and multi-billion-dollar platforms over California fans, small businesses, and nonprofits.”

Accordingly, NIVA and other opponents, once ardent supporters of the measure, are calling on Newsom to veto the legislation. But despite the high-pitched opposition, it’s worth noting that this bill is just one signature away from becoming law. And it’s just one example of more successful, non-price-cap legislation that is making greater progress in state legislatures.

So what accounts for the greater success of speculative ticketing bans compared to other ticketing reform measures?

​Part of the reason is size. States like California and New York are extremely lucrative concert markets and have attracted unprecedented lobbying spending from resale sites to defeat price cap bills (to the tune of $2.6 million from StubHub alone in California). California’s example may show that decoupling the more controversial price caps from other ticketing reform measures is the most feasible route forward for advocates.

But even with AB 1349’s narrower scope, the amended speculative ticketing law barely scraped by, reportedly passing within 15 minutes of the legislature’s deadline.

In New York, State Senator James Skoufis’ proposed ‘Affordable Concerts Act,’ which would have implemented a face-value resale ban, failed to make it out of committee this spring. Since the controversial price cap was packaged with other reforms including a speculative ticketing ban, the state instead extended its existing ticketing law for another year.

At the federal level, advocacy organizations, including the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), have been pushing Congress to update the TICKET Act (H.R. 3950) to strengthen its ban on speculative ticketing. NIVA argues that “the TICKET Act currently before Congress would still permit the very ghost ticketing victimizing fans right now” because of a “concierge services” loophole.

As currently written, Section 3(b) of the Act still allows secondary markets to offer a ‘service’ to obtain tickets for customers, which doesn’t guarantee a ticket exists at the time of purchase. This means that even if the federal government acts, states may still pass stronger speculative-ticketing bans as supplements.