The Right to Transferability, where ticketholders decide how to use, sell, or give away their tickets if they wish, without interference.

The Right to Transparency, which includes all-in pricing and disclosures of relevant information for the purchasing decision.

The Right to Set the Price, so that companies who originally sold the tickets cannot dictate to fans for what price they can or cannot resell their purchased tickets.

The Right to a Fair Marketplace, where fans compete with actual humans, not illegal software bots, for tickets.

The Right to Recourse, where harmed fans retain the choice to seek remedies through the public court system and are not blocked by terms and conditions that force them into private arbitration.

There are a few proposed regulations being considered that would bring more transparency and customer protections to the ticketing marketplace. It’s good that Congress is paying attention, but unfortunately, some of these so-called reforms will have the clear effect of benefitting Ticketmaster, the one company that already has a near-monopoly on ticket sales.

The idea behind the Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights is simple: any ticketing reform should be designed to benefit fans — not the mega-corporation that controls over 80% of the market. What do fans need? They want to make a last-minute decision to go to the game or gig, or to sell their ticket when plans change or things come up.

To protect fans, the cornerstone of any ticketing legislation must ensure that a ticket belongs to the fan who purchased it, and that fan has the right to decide how their ticket is used.

Ticket holdbacks are tickets that will become available for sale, but the artist, venue, or ticketer has not yet released them. When these tickets aren’t disclosed, it becomes deceptive.

Often, primary ticket sellers secretly holdback up to half of the tickets, and in the case of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, 96% of tickets were held back. This creates a false sense of scarcity and raises demand, tricking consumers into spending more on seats than they otherwise would have.

Learn more about this practice here.

Restricting transfer would take away the freedom and convenience that fans enjoy today.

With fewer options to buy tickets, fans will have fewer ways to get tickets to games or concerts – or to enjoy that second chance to go to that must-see event. Seats available for less than the original price might disappear, putting ticket prices out of reach for many fans. And with fewer options to sell tickets, many tickets will go unused, leaving artists to perform to empty seats.

The “primary market” is where tickets are sold for the first time, at prices set by teams, artists, and venues. A single vendor – usually Ticketmaster - typically has a monopoly for each event and dictates when fans must log on to purchase good seats. In the primary market, fans have no way to get their money back if their plans change.

The resale market is for the fans; it’s where fans have the freedom to sell and purchase their tickets at the prices they want, on the ticket resale site of their choice, at a time convenient for them.

Imagine a season ticket holder who can’t make every game. Or a fan who bought tickets for an event that they can’t attend because they’re now going to be out of town or can’t get childcare. Many resellers are fans like these who just need flexibility with their tickets. They depend on safe and secure resale sites to sell them to fellow fans.

Artists and teams set the price for their concerts and games and are paid when tickets are sold in the primary market. Fans who buy tickets then have a choice about whether to use or sell their ticket — but whatever they decide, the artist and team have already been paid at the price they set for every single ticket sold.

Today, resale marketplaces provide a safe and convenient platform for fans to buy and sell their tickets. In a world where one company controls 80% of ticket sales, resale afford fans their only chance to enjoy the freedom and flexibility of a competitive marketplace and to purchase tickets at a time and place of their choosing, including in the days or hours just before an event.

In the old days, ticket resale often entailed a risky transaction with a stranger on the street. However, thanks to a competitive resale marketplace, fans can buy and sell tickets safely and conveniently from several nationally recognized brands without the fear of getting scammed.

Now imagine a world where Ticketmaster also had the stranglehold over resale. If that happens, Ticketmaster will have no incentive to improve the fan experience or take fans’ needs to account. They’ll have no incentive to offer refunds or rewards programs. They’ll have no incentive to permit tickets on the resale market to sell for less than face value, as many such tickets are sold today. And it will be virtually impossible to get a customer representative on the phone if ever needed. Congress should preserve a competitive resale market for consumers and be careful about legislating in a way that would help Ticketmaster take control of resale as well.