President Donald Trump signed an government order on Monday concentrating on ticket scalpers and price-gouging ways on the secondary ticketing market.
The order requires the Federal Commerce Fee to extend enforcement of the BOTS Act, a 2016 laws that made it unlawful to make use of bots to chop traces and purchase mass quantities of tickets for live shows or sporting occasions to allow them to promote them at main markups. Whereas that invoice was celebrated when it was handed into regulation, the BOTS act has solely been enforced a single time since then.
Past that, the order’s declarations are a bit vaguer. The order calls on the FTC to “guarantee value transparency in any respect phases of the ticket-purchase course of, together with the secondary ticketing market.” Trump’s order additionally calls on the FTC to “consider and, if applicable, take enforcement motion to stop unfair, misleading, and anti-competitive conduct within the secondary ticketing market.”
The order additionally calls on the FTC, DOJ and Treasury to current a report within the subsequent six months to summarize “actions taken to handle the difficulty of unfair practices within the stay live performance and leisure trade” whereas additionally calling for the businesses to counsel new laws that would treatment the issues within the enterprise.
This specific order is one in every of many Trump has signed in his first 100 days in workplace, although his others have confirmed to be rather more controversial as they’ve focused teams together with immigrants and the LGBT neighborhood.
In a video posted on a White Home affiliate account on X on Monday, Trump is seen within the Oval Workplace with nation rock artist Child Rock, who thanks the president for the order. Child Rock, a longtime Trump supporter, shared an Instagram put up late final 12 months saying he’d met with now Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi to speak about fixing the ticket enterprise.
Rock referred to as the order a primary step in what he hopes shall be extra modifications to the trade, and he notably referred to as for a cap on what scalpers can resell tickets for. Capping costs is an unpopular technique amongst scalpers and resale websites because it limits their potential income, nevertheless it’s confirmed efficient in retaining costs down for in-demand exhibits.
“Anybody who’s purchased a live performance ticket previously decade, perhaps 20 years, it doesn’t matter what your politics, is aware of it’s a conundrum,” Rock mentioned. “You purchase a ticket for $100, by the point you take a look at it’s $170. However extra importantly, these bots, they arrive in and get all the nice tickets to your favourite exhibits you wish to go to. Then they’re re-listed instantly for typically a 500 p.c markup. I’d love down the highway if there’d be laws to place a cap on the resale tickets.”
The ticket and stay occasions companies have develop into a frequent goal of politicians as stay music followers particularly have grown more and more vocal of their frustration with the present system over excessive base costs and charges, lengthy traces and scalpers, as evidenced by notorious on-sales for live shows like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The Biden Administration had additionally focused the ticket enterprise, specializing in junk charges. Each Stay Nation and SeatGeek met with Biden in 2023, committing to embrace all-in ticketing insurance policies in order that charges would now not be hidden till the tip of a purchase order.
The Biden-era DOJ had additionally sued Stay Nation final 12 months over monopoly allegations, calling to separate the live performance promoter from ticketing large Ticketmaster. Stay Nation has persistently denied the monopoly allegations, and the case is ongoing.
Stay Nation voiced its approval of the manager order on Monday; each the corporate and different stay music advocates such because the Nationwide Impartial Venue Affiliation have referred to as to extend enforcement of the BOTS Act lately.
“Scalpers and bots stop followers from getting tickets on the costs artists set, and we thank President Trump for taking them head-on,” Stay Nation mentioned in a press release. “We assist any significant resale reforms — together with extra enforcement of the BOTS act, caps on resale costs, and extra.”
