Maryland Lawmakers:
Don’t punish the fans that fuel live events.
Ticket resale is not and should not be a crime…
It’s how many fans afford to buy more tickets and pay other expenses.
Laws regulating ticketing should protect fans first, not the profit motive of venues, touring artists, teams, or ticketers like Ticketmaster.
What’s wrong with SB539 and HB701? These bills would:
Make it illegal and punishable with fines up to $25,000 if you resell your tickets for $1 more than you paid (even though you bought your tickets an you should be able to do what you want with them)
Focus too much on the resale of tickets already sold and purchased by a ticketholder, and not enough to combat fraud and deception
Turn a blind eye to the use of illegal bots that cheat the system, instead of requiring ticket sellers and venues to report suspected bot use to the Maryland Attorney General
Allow for the most deceptive ticketing practice of all to continue – venues, artists and Ticketmaster secretly holdback massive amounts of tickets for special access to events, to create scarcity and force fans into buying expensive tickets. Meanwhile holdbacks should be disclosed to consumers!
Force the transfer of your personal information (name, phone number, email, address) for every ticket purchased from a resale marketplace to the ticket issuer (Ticketmaster, venue, team, music artist, promoters). This is unnecessary and risky! Maryland lawmakers should not put your information at risk of ID theft!
Permit venues to discriminate against fans who purchase their tickets from a source other than their own box office or contract ticket issuer, by denying your entry or revoking your tickets for virtually any reason they want.
There is another bill, SB1113 that truly protects consumers and is a better way to improve the ticket buying experience, enhance transparency, and combat deception.
Read about SB 539 - https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2024RS/bills/sb/sb0539F.pdf
Read about HB 701 - https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2024RS/bills/hb/hb0701F.pdf
Read about SB 1113 (a good proposal that should be adopted) - https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2024RS/bills/sb/sb1113F.pdf