Ticketmaster-backed law means “Less Protection, Higher Fees” en masse

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed a massive economic development bill into law this week, ignoring significant opposition from consumer groups over language that dramatically changes rules in the state around ticketing and reselling.

Opponents of the new rules say the new language around ticket transfer restrictions in particular gives enormous new power to companies like Ticketmaster, which seek to eliminate consumer choices about how they use, share and sell tickets they’ve bought to events.

“I can’t resell it to anyone I want, I can’t give it to my friends or family if I can’t go and so it really hurts the fans,” says Dierdre Cummings from MASSPIRG. “Fans and ticket holders really got the wrong end of the deal.”

“Ticket sellers should not have the right to prevent us from transferring our own tickets on our own terms. Requiring event tickets to be transferable is both important consumer protection and common sense.” she added. “The big winners here are the big ticket sellers, not sports fans or concertgoers.”

Within more than The 300-page economic development bill was signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Healy are several changes to the rules specific to ticket sales. Among them are measures that many consumer advocates have pushed for, including “all-in” price transparency rules, rules banning the use of so-called “bot” software programs to buy tickets and updates to the licensing framework for businesses and individuals that buyer. and sell tickets in the state.

The ability of companies such as Ticketmaster to lock tickets to the system through which they were originally sold is language-specific, which has caused controversy.

While the version of the legislation passed by the House included strong language protecting consumer choices over the use, transfer and resale of tickets from box office lockouts, and the version passed by the Senate did not address transfer restrictions at all, deleted conference committee language of the House bill and inserted new language that expressly provides the authority to lock tickets to the primary sales platform as long as those restrictions are disclosed prior to sale.

Such limitations have been specifically mentioned in Department of Justice antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster filed earlier this year as a prime example of ways the entertainment giant “protect(es) its monopoly” by weaponizing the terms and conditions of a primary sale and the technology of the “SafeTix” system to exclude competition.

READ MORE: Ticketmaster “SafeTix” Takes Central Role in DOJ’s Antitrust Lawsuit

The signing of the bill expressly authorizes the use of such tactics, which put state law at odds with its own attorney general. Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell was among the many state legal leaders who signed on as co-plaintiffs with the Justice Department in its lawsuit seeking to break the alleged monopoly when it was first filed this spring. As of November, 40 Attorneys General—representing states that contain about 90% of the U.S. population and range in political direction from deep blue California to ruby ​​red Texas—have signed on as co-plaintiffs.

AG Campbell’s office has declined to comment to TicketNews in previous stories about this legislation. An email sent Thursday morning to her staff did not receive a response by the time of publication.

READ MORE: Concern grows over Ticketmaster-tilted bill’s conflict with antitrust case

“This language allows Live Nation to bury anti-transferability provisions in terms and conditions that fans often quickly click through in their eagerness to purchase tickets to the next big event,” reads a letter sent by the Progressive Chamber to Governor Healey last week. “Worse, Live Nation could use ticket terms to force purchases to resell tickets exclusively on their own platform, further cementing their monopoly position in the live event ecosystem.”

Organizations including the National Consumers League, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America and the Sports Fans Coalition joined the Chamber of Progress and MASSPIRG in urging Gov. Healey’s office to demand changes to the language before she signs the bill this week. With that option gone, they are pushing Massachusetts lawmakers to take swift action in the next session to “right this anti-fan wrong” when the 2025-2026 session begins.

Lawmakers involved in the bill have defended the language, indicating a view that it merely added a transparency requirement for actions already taken by companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster, rather than explicitly allowing them by writing them into the law.

“The only thing I see changing is if you get a non-transferable ticket, it will be displayed better,” said Sen. Barry Finegold, the Senate’s lead negotiator on the package.

He later added, “I don’t see much change for 95 to 99% of how tickets are made.”

A Live Nation Entertainment executive rejected the consumer advocate’s pushback to the Massachusetts laws, blaming reliable ticket resale for all consumer ticketing concerns, rather than that company’s actions.

Transfer-restrictive systems like SafeTix and locking tickets to the resale marketplace are “about whether the professional ticket brokers and the ticket resellers that support them can use their bots and all their other tactics to grab thousands and thousands of tickets that were meant for true fans and instead put them in resale markets where they’re going to double the price,” says Dan Wall, who signed on as vice president of the company in 2023 after representing it in antitrust cases for years as an outside attorney and is leading its defense against the DOJ case. “This is not about someone getting sick and not being able to go to a show.”

Despite Wall’s defense, history shoes that transfer and resale restrictions entail significant consumer harm.

Research published by the Sports Fans Coalition shows that consumers have saved more than $351 million on tickets purchased through resale marketplaces between 2017 and 2023. These savings average $30 per ticket. ticket above the primary market face values ​​of tickets purchased on resale marketplaces over the past eight years. Red Sox fans have saved $7.4 million, closely followed by the $6.5 million saved by Celtics fans. Bruins fans saved $5.9 million, while Patriots fans saved $1.1 million during that span.

“Transferability saves fans money,” says SFC’s Brian Hess. “In Massachusetts alone, fans have saved $21 million (since 2017) due to portability. On average, consumers in states that protect portability save twice as much as consumers in states that don’t.”

Even in cases where event organizers use a locked ticketing system that does not allow resale above the price paid, these restrictions harm consumers. This is because event promoters will regularly not allow tickets to be sold below a certain price “floor”, which allows them to move unsold box office tickets available for less than equivalent tickets listed for resale through the locked marketplace.

“(Price floors) meant I wasn’t able to sell the tickets or get any money back while the price was locked (…) because why would anyone buy tickets at face value plus 10% when there are tickets for face value,” a £340 Ed Sheeran fan told The Guardian after being unable to resell tickets through the locked and price-controlled Twickets system.

The existence of competing resale platforms and free consumer marketability eliminates this problem. Watch a high-profile example from Bruce Springsteen’s recent tour with the E Street Band. Tickets for a show at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma could be purchased through resale marketplaces for about $7, while tickets through the “official” Ticketmaster marketplace were listed for at least 10 times that amount.

READ MORE: The Tanking Tulsa date shows Springsteen spending rock bottom prices on tour

Due to the widespread use of so-called “dynamic” surge pricing during peak times, those who purchase tickets and are subsequently unable to attend the event may have paid significantly more than any so-called “face value” figure for their tickets. In practice, that translates into situations where a consumer who buys thousands of dollars worth of peak tickets tries to sell them back through the locked marketplace, only to see nearby tickets listed for a fraction of that amount through the box office.

Using the same Tulsa concert as a key example, last-minute tickets to see that show on the floor were available through Ticketmaster for $229. A screenshot from a user who complained about the dynamic pricing used during the initial sales period for Springsteen’s tour showed that tickets in the same section and row were sold at a markup price of $3,426. This meant that someone who bought tickets at the high fare would not be able to sell their tickets as high as they were limited to lowering their tickets below the “price floor”.

“Throughout pricing hurts consumers twice,” John Breyault of the National Consumers League said at the time. “First, they keep discount tickets from being available to fans who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend a show. Second, they hurt sellers who simply want to recoup at least some of their ticket investment when they are unable to attend an event. Fans should not be the ones to pay the price when Live Nation and its customers fail to anticipate lower than expected demand for an event.”

For now, Massachusetts consumers will likely have to contend with a far more restrictive ticketing experience for events in their state. It remains to be seen whether or not a legislative solution to the transfer issues will be pursued in the upcoming session.