Big Ticket and Fans Fight to a Draw
We recently fired up fans across New York with our rally cry: "Big Ticket Comes for the Big Apple." Our message was loud and clear: fans deserve a fair and transparent system, not one that forces them back to street corners to buy tickets, and As the legislative session nears the end, it’s clear: progress won’t win today—not yet, anyway.
The New York State Legislature has officially punted on passing comprehensive ticketing reforms. Despite a full-court press from fans who have sent hundreds of letters to lawmakers over the weekend about A8659/S8221, lawmakers have decided to simply extend the current New York law instead of building upon it to create even more vital consumer protections.
“New York still boasts one of the strongest ticketing laws in the nation, but fans are frustrated that they’ll have to wait yet another year for basic protections, like transparency on ticket holdbacks, guarantees for postponed events, and safeguards for season ticket holders. A8659/S8221 had a lot to love, but it came bundled with a dangerous concession to monopoly power: resale price caps that would have driven fraud through the roof and gutted consumer choice. A transparent, competitive resale market is good for fans and saves New Yorkers millions of dollars a year. We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and work with Chair Skoufis, Chair Kim, and the entire Legislature to ensure next year’s reforms put fans first instead of catering to monopolies.”
If passed, A8659/S8221 would have been a first-of-its-kind disclosure mandate for ticket holdbacks, while requiring ticket sellers to refund fans if an event isn’t rescheduled within 3 months and protecting season ticket holders from losing their seats just because they resold a ticket. However, the bill gives artists or their agents the power to decide if tickets can be resold above face value —a move that seems harmless until you realize many of these agents are in bed with Ticketmaster. This opens the door to serious abuse. With tools like SafeTix, Ticketmaster can block transfers, force resale exclusively through its own walled garden, harvest your data, and control the entire secondary market, undermining competition and turning fans into serfs in Ticketmaster’s fiefdom.
While price caps might sound consumer-friendly, they actually backfire—pushing fans to unregulated spaces like Craigslist, Facebook, and shady offshore sites where fraud thrives and is four times higher in countries like Ireland and Australia. Worse still, they undercut the legitimate resale platforms where fans often score tickets below face value - saving over $475 million since 2017, including $65 million in New York alone. Capping resale prices won’t protect fans, it’ll drive them into the shadows.
A8659/S8221 didn’t have to be scrapped. It only needed to be amended. Instead the monopoly power of Live Nation/Ticketmaster and the rest of their Big Ticket allies (National Independent Venues Association, National Independent Talent Organization, and Music Action Coalition) got what they wanted – to continue operating an opaque marketplace that benefits them over fans.