Pressure on Congress is heating up to pass legislation that will clean up the live events ticketing business following May’s passage of the Transparency In Charges for Key Events Ticketing (TICKET) Act in the House of Representatives. The Fix the Tix Coalition, led by the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), is calling for a nationwide day of action Tuesday (July 9) to encourage music fans, professionals and supporters to lobby their congressional representatives to pass meaningful legislation that will curb the growing problem of ticketing scams and deceptive practices in the live music business. NIVA and other members of the Fix the Tix coalition, which also includes the Recording Academy and the National Independent Talent Organization, are backing their own legislation — the Senate’s Fans First Act, supported by U.
S. Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.
) — while also supporting passage of the TICKET Act, which is sponsored by Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla) and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.
J.), among others. Both bills would ban the use of speculative ticket listings on sites like StubHub and SeatGeek, require all-in-pricing before checkout and crack down on the use of deceptive websites and URLs.
The Fans First Act would also require resellers to disclose seat locations on their resale listings, ban scalpers from using fan clubs to buy up some concert tickets and include greater consume.
