End exclusive control over ticket sales

California lawmaker wants to end exclusive control over ticket sales

The bill is directly aimed at the embattled seller Ticketmaster.

By LARA KORTE and DUSTIN GARDINER

A state lawmaker wants to end exclusive control by companies like Ticketmaster over the sale of concert and sporting tickets, setting up a battle between consumer groups and a powerful sector of the entertainment industry that is still reeling from the 2022 Taylor Swift ticketing fiasco.

The Assembly bill from Oakland Democrat Buffy Wicks, first reported by POLITICO, would go further than some of the proposals that stalled in the California Legislature last year amid fierce lobbying from industry giants. In addition to lifting restrictions on reselling tickets, Wicks’ bill would allow fans more choice in purchasing.

Instead of buying tickets through one company — like Ticketmaster, which typically has an exclusive contract with the venue — fans could instead choose from a variety of companies, similar to the way travel websites like Kayak or Hotels.com operate, Wicks said.

“We want to make sure that we have competition and choice for consumers so we don’t end up with situations like the Taylor Swift concerts — like ‘Lord of the Flies’ attempts to get tickets,” she said.

The bill is a direct attack on Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, which has faced ongoing government scrutiny since the two entities merged in 2010. The discontent reached a fever pitch after Ticketmaster’s chaotic handling of the pre-sale for Swift’s Eras Tour, which was followed by a Senate hearing and an antitrust investigation from the Department of Justice. The probe is still ongoing.

Wicks, who chairs the Assembly Appropriations Committee and has also proposed ambitious housing and privacy policies, is one of the more powerful lawmakers in Sacramento. But Live Nation is a formidable opponent, able to dilute or stall legislation in California and around the nation.

The company enjoys support from groups like the National Independent Venue Association and the Music Artists Coalition, whose board members include major celebrities like Anderson .Paak, Meghan Trainor and Dave Matthews. The groups have raised concerns that the legislation will hurt small businesses and artists by empowering third-party ticket resellers.

“You can bet that the music artist community will come out against this bill unless some substantial changes are made,” Jordan Bromley, a lawyer and board member, said of Wicks’ bill.

Dan Wall, Live Nation Entertainment’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, said Wicks’ bill would benefit ticket resellers, not consumers.

“When we and others who have a true stake in producing events — like artists, teams, and venues — explain the real effect of these bills, and how they mainly promote ticket scalping, legislators figure out on their own that they aren’t good for consumers,” he said in a statement.

A ticketing bill proposed last year by Los Angeles-area Democrat Laura Friedman, which would have barred primary sellers like Ticketmaster from restricting the reselling of tickets, was pared down so severely that it lost the support of the Consumer Federation of California, which had co-sponsored it.

Republican state Sen. Scott Wilk similarly introduced a bill last year to break up exclusive ticketing contracts, but his office confirmed he intends to shelve the bill.

“We were asked to take amendments that would essentially make the bill useless,” Wilk’s spokesperson, Nicholas VaVerka, said in an email. “We expected it to be an uphill battle in the Assembly.”

Live Nation has a powerful presence in Sacramento, acknowledged Robert Herrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, which is co-sponsoring Wicks’ bill this year. But in the absence of action from Washington, he argued, the state needs to lead in taking on what he sees as a monopoly.

“We cannot rely, in California, on the feds to do this for us,” he said. “If you’re waiting for them to act, it’s going to be like Waiting for Godot, and we all know how that plays out.”