Senate Revives Bill Designed to Increase Price Transparency for Event Tickets
Written by djfrosty on February 3, 2025
A ticketing reform law meant to clean up the concert industry has been revived in the U.S. Senate after nearly becoming law at the end of last year.
Originally introduced by representative Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Florida), the Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act (TICKET Act) would introduce a number of reforms to the ticket-buying process. That includes rules to increase pricing transparency, which would require sports teams and concert promoters to clearly and prominently display the full price of a concert ticket, with fees and taxes added, so that the price they first see is the price they pay at checkout.
The TICKET Act died with the end of the 2023-2024 congressional term but has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate by senators Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Ed Markey (D- Massachusetts). It heads to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday (Feb. 5) for a hearing.
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The TICKET Act would also mandate refunds for canceled events, ban speculative ticket sales and crack down on the unauthorized use of venues, teams and artists on resell sites designed to confuse fans. Born out of the bungled Taylor Swift ticket sale for her record-breaking Eras Tour — which was crashed by scalpers and billions of bots trying to buy up tickets to flip for profit — the TICKET Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in December 2023 and passed the House in June of last year in a 344 to 24 vote. The bill was even included in the first iteration of the end-of-year Continuing Resolution spending bill signed by former president Joe Biden at the end of last year before eventually being pulled from it.
Whether or not the TICKET Act ends up on President Donald Trump’s desk, one of its key tenets — all-in pricing — was solidified in December by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it announced a rule change tackling “junk fees.” The so-called Junk Fees Rule — which also applies to hotel rooms and airline fees — requires total price disclosure including fees for any event tickets listed for sale on the internet.
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” former FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said on Dec. 17, hours after FTC commissioners announced the rule change.
The TICKET Act isn’t the only bill designed to create a more hospitable ticketing marketplace for consumers — though some have claimed that violators of existing laws aren’t being held to account. In September, the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) sent Khan a letter urging her to begin enforcing the 2016 BOTS Act, which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.” The Sept. 9 letter claimed NITO members had attended a ticket resale conference and “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act.”
In July, songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle wrote that the BOTS Act has only been enforced one time since its 2017 passage. He went on to argue that the government needs to focus on enforcing its existing laws before moving on to a new regime of legislation that will ultimately go “under-enforced.”