Proposed bill puts power in the hands of ticket resellers, not fans

Washington has always led in music — from Jimi Hendrix reinventing the guitar to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and grunge defining the sound and look of the 1990s.

Local artists have also led the fight against skyrocketing ticket prices and runaway scalpers and bots. Pearl Jam pioneered the idea of artists taking back power from ticketing companies to make sure real fans could get their hands on decent and affordable seats.

But new legislation, House Bill 1648, introduced by Rep. Kristine Reeves, D-Federal Way, would undo those gains and send prices skyrocketing for Washington concerts once again — tying artists’ hands and giving the power Pearl Jam and so many others fought to win to giant industrial resellers.

To be clear, new “all in” pricing disclosure rules will stop companies from piling on confusing junk fees by requiring the first price a fan sees be the final price they pay. And updated language will level the playing field in the arms race between real fans and scalper’s bots. Those are welcome changes we support.

But the core of the bill sacrifices fans and artists to prop up billion-dollar resale companies and the professional brokers and scalpers making up an overwhelming majority of the sales on these sites.

The biggest problem is the bill’s ban on fan-to-fan face-value exchanges that many artists use to shut down extortionate resale markets. By limiting resale to face-value exchanges, artists protect fans unable to use their tickets, giving them a way to recoup what they paid while avoiding price-gouging on broker-powered reseller sites. This gives fans a second chance at affordable seats while eliminating the incentive for resellers and bots to crash ticket releases and scoop up premium seats in the first place.

Data confirms artist-empowered face-value exchanges are successful in protecting fans. In July 2023, the National Independent Talent Organization released a study comparing states where The Cure used face-value exchanges versus states where they have been banned. The findings were clear: Fans save millions when artists can use technology to keep prices down.

• In California, the number of tickets resold and reseller profits were 92% to 99% less than in states like New York and Illinois, which ban resale restrictions.
• The Cure’s resold tickets in Chicago were on average 396% above face value.
• Another arena-level artist using fan-to-fan face-value exchanges had similarly dramatic results. There were just 44 total tickets resold for their three California shows, but more than 1,000 tickets resold for a single New York City show where the average price was 712% higher than the average face-value price.

The bill also endorses harmful “speculative” or “spec” ticketing, where brokers sell seats before they have possession of a ticket. Ticket scalpers take consumers’ money up front and use those funds to try to procure a ticket by any means necessary. When they can’t, fans may not find out until the day of the concert, leaving them without a ticket. This not only artificially inflates ticket prices, but also causes confusion at venue box offices and blocks everyday consumers from procuring real face-value tickets.

By allowing speculative sales if they provide minimal disclosures, the bill actually validates and endorses them. Solving this issue is easy: Resellers should have to have possession of a ticket before listing it.

Rep. Reeves has described her legislation as pro-consumer but unfortunately, the only stakeholders it will help are resellers, which is why they and their astroturf groups are the only ones who support it.

Washington legislators should not support a bill that elevates the right of brokers and resale platforms over Washington artists and fans.