United States President Donald Trump has signed a directive geared towards protecting consumers from "exploitative ticket scalping" and reforming the American ticketing industry.
Trump signed the executive order in the White House, with musician Kid Rock standing next to him in an ostentatious American flag-themed outfit. "I want the fans to have fair ticket prices," Kid Rock said.
According to a press factsheet, "Ticket scalpers use bots and other unfair means to acquire large quantities of face-value tickets, then re-sell them at an enormous markup on the secondary market, price-gouging consumers and depriving fans of the opportunity to see their favorite artists without incurring extraordinary expenses".
The factsheet also stated that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi are ordered to make sure that ticket scalpers are in compliance with the I.R.S. and other applicable laws. It also orders the Federal Trade Commission to work with the U.S. attorney to ensure that competition laws are enforced in the live entertainment industry.
This move comes on the heels of the Justice Department and several state attorneys general suing Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster last year for monopolizing markets to the detriment of artists and fans. This past January, U.S. senators chastised Live Nation's inability to prevent bot purchases of tickets after the controversy involving ticket sales for a Taylor Swift's Eras concert tour.
For their part, Live Nation issued a statement yesterday thanking Trump for this order. "We support any meaningful resale reforms — including more enforcement of the BOTS act, caps on resale prices, and more," the company expressed.
This legislative move presents a seismic shift in the American ticketing industry, though it remains to be seen if other countries might implement similar measures. Anti-scalping laws appear to be sorely needed given the frequency of scalping debacles in the past decade. Most recently in Singapore, Lady Gaga's stop in the country sparked a ticket frenzy and uproar over scalping practices.
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