MUSIC ARTISTS COALITION'S POLL MAKES THE CASE FOR AWELL-REGULATED TICKET RESALE MARKET
The Music Artists Coalition, an Irving Azoff-aligned group with documented ties to Live Nation and NIVA’s Fix the Tix lobbying coalition, released a national poll this month claiming that voters are demanding sweeping restrictions on ticket resale markets. The headline writes itself: fans hate scalpers, artists deserve control, lawmakers should act.
But a close reading of the data actually tells a much different story than the one Live Nation’s favorite artist group is promoting. In fact, the data show that Americans believe ticket resale gives consumers real choice and that resale price caps are among their least-preferred ticket-industry reforms.
Here’s what the poll actually found:
Fans value a functioning resale market.
Voters want better regulation, not the elimination of resale.
The fraud questions make the case for regulated resale.
Price caps are not a legislative priority.
Fans Value a Functioning Resale Market
Start with this finding MAC buried: 70% of respondents agreed that "ticket resale provides a valuable service for fans who miss out on original sales or need to sell tickets they can no longer use." That's not a fringe position. Seven in ten Americans recognize that secondary markets serve real purposes. The fan who got sick, the parent whose kid had a conflict, the concertgoer who couldn't afford to buy in the original sale window but can months later.
MAC glossed right past it.
What Voters Actually Want: Better Regulation, Not Market Elimination
Here's perhaps the most important number in the entire survey: 87% of respondents agreed that "reforms to the ticketing industry should focus on eliminating fraud while preserving choices for fans." That's a direct repudiation of the approach MAC is advocating – price caps on ticket resale. Voters aren't asking for resale markets to be dismantled; they're asking for those markets to work better and more safely, such as the policies found in the federal TICKET Act.
The TICKET Act mandates all-in pricing, bans speculative ticketing, bans deceptive websites, and requires refunds for canceled or postponed events. It’s comprehensive ticketing consumer protection legislation that almost became law last Congress, and passed the House of Representatives this year 409-15.
A well-regulated secondary market is exactly how you accomplish that. Transparent pricing and fraud accountability are consumer protection measures that make resale safer. MAC and its allies treat them as an afterthought while pushing price caps and transfer restrictions that would benefit primary market incumbents, like Ticketmaster, far more than fans.
Why else would these same organizations be the main roadblock to the TICKET Act reaching the President’s desk?
The Fraud questions Makes the Case FOR Regulated Resale
MAC makes a dramatic claim: "1 in 7 concertgoers have been scammed." The actual survey data show that 10% of respondents answered "yes" to whether they'd ever been scammed when buying concert tickets, and that question covers their entire lifetime of ticket purchases, not a recent window. More tellingly, 88% said they had never been scammed, and 72% reported experiencing none of the negative ticketing issues listed in the survey. Only 7% had ever purchased a ticket that turned out to be fake. Only 4% had a ticket that was never delivered.
None of this means the problem isn't real. 94% of voters said protecting fans from fraudulent tickets is important, and we agree. But the data does not support a narrative of a sweeping market crisis. It supports a targeted fraud-enforcement agenda. The answer to a broken, under-regulated marketplace is better oversight, not eliminating the marketplace and handing control back to primary ticket monopolists who were just found liable for antitrust violations in federal court or black market operators.
Again, these questions demonstrate the need for the TICKET Act.
Price Caps are not a Legislative Priority
You would think that the number of bills we’ve seen in state legislatures this year suggests otherwise, but when voters were asked to rank five ticketing priorities by importance, capping resale prices and protecting artists’ rights to control were ranked as the least important. Fraud protection ranked first. Full upfront pricing ranked second. Bot prevention was third. Price caps finished at the bottom alongside artists' resale control rights.
MAC's central policy demand, the one that would most directly serve the interests of Live Nation-aligned promoters and primary market incumbents, is the policy voters care least about. And yet it's the one MAC and their allies chose to anchor their advocacy campaigns around. Not protecting fans, but protecting their own and Ticketmaster’s power.
Who Fans Trust — and Who They Don't
One more finding worth noting: consumer advocacy groups ranked as one of the most trusted stakeholders to advocate for ticketing policy, ahead of ticketing companies, resale platforms, concert venues, Congress, and regulators. We take that seriously.
The fan advocacy community is pushing for what the data actually supports: transparent all-in pricing, robust anti-fraud enforcement, and a well-regulated secondary market that serves fans who need it. Not resale restrictions that serve the financial interests of the same company, a jury just found guilty of antitrust violations.