Colorado ticket reselling, bots regulation fight ongoing despite bill
A bill to regulate ticket sales in Colorado is awaiting Gov. Jared Polis’ signature, but the fight over public opinion still isn’t over.
The bill was introduced early in the last legislative session, with sponsor Sen. Robert Rodriguez saying he just wanted to make going to shows and concerts easier. But what he hoped would be a cut-and-dried consumer protection bill unfolded into a prolonged turf war that, weeks after the final vote was taken, still lacks a clear outcome.
If the bill, SB23-60, becomes law, it would ban bots from automatically buying up swaths of tickets and require sellers to disclose the total cost of the tickets — fees and all — upfront. It would also ban sellers from increasing a ticket price after it had already been selected for purchase and third parties from selling tickets they don’t actually have.
But provisions on reselling, and transparency around total available tickets pitted primary and secondary sellers against each other — a battle that’s ongoing as Polis weighs signing it into law or vetoing the measure outright. A spokesperson only said he will review the bill, as he does all of them, before deciding whether to sign it.
Some of the biggest event companies in the state and the country back the measure for giving them weapons against nefarious actors; some of the biggest third-party resellers oppose it on grounds it strips choice from the marketplace.
Lawmakers passed it with large majorities in the state House of Representatives and Senate, though both the yea and nay votes were bipartisan in each chamber. By the end, Rodriguez, a Denver Democrat, said it was something most were tired of hearing of on account of how intense the lobbying could be.
By the end, he had also tried to stop using the word “consumer” when discussing the bill. It became too big of a term, one that encompassed a multi-faceted industry that was more than sought to address with the bill. “Fans” was more representative of his intent, he said.
“When you talk about consumers, we get confused about which consumers,” Rodriguez said. “Are we talking about moms and dads that just want a ticket to go to an event with their family? Or are we talking about resellers and brokers and a much bigger industry?”
In short, he hoped to update state law to match what’s actually happening with online queues and automated ticket buying. He doesn’t think the end result will be transformative if it becomes law, but hopes it will make things easier for people sitting online waiting for a ticket. Rodriguez didn’t have any special insight into if Polis would sign the bill. But, he noted that the governor called him ahead of time on another bill that was vetoed earlier this month. As of Friday afternoon, Rodriguez said he hadn’t gotten such a call.
Still, the campaign to sway Polis is ongoing, to the point that some opponents commissioned a poll to make their case. A clear majority of respondents said they should have the freedom to resell tickets however they choose — without the likes of Ticketmaster or AXS controlling that market, according to the poll. The bill would allow event operators to revoke tickets that violated venue policies or otherwise associated with fraud or misconduct — which opponents worry consolidates the giants’ market power and sideline ticket reselling.
The poll was conducted by RBI Strategies and Research, a Denver-based firm that has done surveys for political campaigns, non-government organizations and others. FiveThirtyEight gives it a B/C-level rating on an A+ to D- scale.
“There doesn’t seem to be this great swell to restrict resell,” pollster Rick Ridder said. “In fact, voters really value the freedom and flexibility, and also fear the monopolization of the ticket sale system.”
Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, referred to David Weingarden, vice president of concerts and events for Z2 Entertainment, for comment. Z2 Entertainment handles booking for several Colorado venues, including Aggie Theatre, Boulder Theater and Fox Theatre.
Weingarden said “it makes my blood boil” to hear this described as an anti-consumer bill. He authored an op-ed in the Denver Post encouraging Polis to sign the bill as a way to crack down on scams and third parties that try to skim money from eventgoers.
He described would-be patrons yelling at box office employees nightly when they learn their third-party ticket wasn’t valid. He also fears for venues’ bottom lines when third-party sellers make it look like a show is sold out, only for a full staff of bartenders to sit around with no customers because the resellers made a bad bet. Even if the bill becomes law, people can still resell tickets, only now with the knowledge that they bought legitimate ones in the first place, he said.
“It does us no good to revoke people’s tickets for no reason. We want people in the room. The artist wants people in the room,” Weingarden said. “Nothing in this bill prevents resale. What it does is give us, the venues, tools to stop the bad actors. If anyone says anything else, they’re getting duped.”
As for the power to revoke tickets, Weingarden said it’s the only tool available when some resellers find ways to bypass limits and scoop of swaths of tickets in the hopes of making a profit.
Rodriguez likewise pushed back on criticism that the bill would kill secondary markets; if anything, it defines a ticket reseller in law.
State Rep. William Lindstedt, a Broomfield Democrat, sat on the committee that would clear the bill to the House floor. He joked about how heavy it was lobbied, with top lawyers for the venues and a former speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives arguing for third-party websites, vying for his time.
He voted yes to push the bill ahead, with an amendment requiring disclosure of how many tickets are available for a show. Lindstedt called it a transparency issue, as well as fairness one. Holding back tickets creates a false sense of scarcity, allowing venues to charge higher prices, he said. Without it, it felt like the bill would give too much power to the venues.
When that amendment was stripped — Rodriguez said it was too big of a topic for this bill and would have created issues with other stakeholders — Lindstedt took to the House floor to explain why he voted yes in committee, but no on final passage.
“It’s big business,” Lindstedt said in an interview Friday. “We need to make sure people are paying attention to consumers and what it actually means when they’re trying to go to shows.”
The venues take issue with that provision. Weingarden called it an unfair logistical challenge while also tilting the favor toward resellers — if they know there are few or no tickets available, they can also abuse the supply and demand to drive up costs, with no benefit to artists or hosts.
The Colorado Public Interest Research Group, the local chapter of a national consumer advocacy organization, took no formal position on the bill. The proposal caught the eye of Executive Director Danny Katz, but he said the group ultimately lacked the time to have a formal position. Some measures, like up-front fees, are clearly good for consumers, he said. Others aren’t as clear, especially in a marketplace already seen as having limited competition.
Speculative ticketing, for example, is bad when the end-user buys tickets they can’t use either because they were revoked or never procured by the third-party seller to begin with. But when it’s the only way a person whose job stops them from spending hours in an online queue can get high-demand tickets — think Taylor Swift — it’s not as clear cut, he said. But, scammers will also use fandom to take advantage of consumers.
He argued more can be done by venues on the front end to fight scammers, especially with the stacks of fees on seemingly every ticket.
“We all know when there’s something we really want to see, whether it’s a Nuggets finals game or a Taylor Swift concert, we’ll do anything to get that ticket. And scam artists will do anything to exploit that,” Katz said.
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