Billy Eilish, Green Day back bill to reform live-event ticketing system

WEB DESK: Billie Eilish, Green Day and more than 250 mainstream musicians are backing a bill aiming to overhaul the live-event ticketing system.

According to the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the bill will target “three main issues” in the ticketing sector: transparency, consumer protection, and preventing inflated resale prices.

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The “Fans First Act” was introduced to the United States’ (US) Senate Commerce Committee in December last year. The Fans First Act is part of a broader push against what is seen as unfair ticketing practices by monopolistic companies in the market.

The bill was led by a coalition called “Fix the Tix” that includes the National Independent Venue Association and “Eventbrite”. The coalition wrote a letter to the US Senate urging them to support the bill. The letter was then sent to the committee’s Chair Maria Cantwell and other Senators including Ted Cruz.

The letter detailed what it sees as the “flawed nature” of the current ticketing system. The letter-writers declared the practices of ticket-selling companies as “predatory” while arguing that resellers and secondary platforms inflate prices and restrict access to tickets for most of the public.

The Fans First Act calls for proper measures such as requiring ticket sellers to disclose the total ticket cost, including fees, and strengthening the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act to prevent scalpers from using software bots to buy tickets in bulk.

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Fans and musicians alike have expressed resentment against the ticketing companies, in particular the Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster has faced backlash in past for alleged unfair monopolistic market practices. It faced a lawsuit in 2022 after struggling to meet ticket demand for billionaire singer Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

The letter calls on US Senators to support the bill, arguing that the ticket-selling companies need to stop their alleged “deceptive ticketing practices”.