Billie Eilish, Green Day and other artists back bill that would reform live-event ticketing system

Over 250 standard musicians — together with Billie Eilish, Inexperienced Day and Dave Matthews — signed a letter Thursday urging the Senate Commerce Committee to help a invoice that goals to reform the live-event ticketing system.

The Followers First Act, which was launched and referred to the Commerce Committee in December, hopes to treatment three main points within the ticketing trade: ticket transparency, shopper safety and stopping unhealthy actors from charging exorbitant resale costs. It’s one among a number of payments launched lately geared toward combating unfair ticketing practices, together with the BOSS and SWIFT Act and the TICKET Act.

Repair the Tix, a coalition of stay occasion trade organizations spearheaded by the Nationwide Unbiased Venue Affiliation and Eventbrite, organized the letter, which was addressed to Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the rating member.

Different artists who signed embody: Cyndi Lauper, Jason Mraz, Lorde, Sia, Prepare, Fall Out Boy, Graham Nash, Becky G and Chappell Roan.

Discontent towards the ticketing trade, particularly Ticketmaster, reached a fever pitch lately. Followers sued Ticketmaster in 2022 after the corporate struggled to maintain up with the demand for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The Eras Tour debacle led to a Senate Judiciary Committee listening to to look at Ticketmaster’s outsize function within the trade. (Swift was not among the many artists who signed the letter.)

“We’re becoming a member of collectively to say that the present system is damaged: predatory resellers and secondary platforms have interaction in misleading ticketing practices to inflate ticket costs and deprive followers of the prospect to see their favourite artists at a good worth,” the letter, a replica of which NBC Information considered, states.

Stephen Parker, govt director of the Nationwide Unbiased Venue Affiliation, stated in a press release that “the time for complete ticketing reform is now.”

“It’s clear that each one individuals of the stay occasion ecosystem, from artists, to venues, to followers, demand complete ticketing reform and shopper safety towards the predatory ticket resale practices which have deeply stay leisure in the US,” Parker stated.

The Followers First Act would require all ticket sellers and resellers to reveal and break down the entire value of a ticket, together with charges. It could additionally bolster the Higher On-line Ticket Gross sales (BOTS) Act, which was launched in 2016 to ban scalpers from utilizing software program to purchase excessive volumes of tickets, by additional prohibiting the usage of bots to buy tickets. 

“We, as artists, as music lovers, and as live performance attendees ourselves, urge you to help the Followers First Act to fight predatory resellers’ misleading ticketing practices and the secondary platforms, which additionally revenue from these practices,” the letter despatched Thursday states. “Predatory resellers shouldn’t be extra worthwhile than the individuals dedicating their lives to their artwork.”

The senators co-sponsoring the invoice are: John Cornyn, R-Texas; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; Peter Welch, D-Vt.; Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss; and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

Stay Nation beforehand issued its help for the invoice, saying the corporate welcomes “laws that brings optimistic reform to stay occasion ticketing.”

The corporate, which owns Ticketmaster, is anticipated to be served an antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Division as quickly as subsequent month, in keeping with The Wall Avenue Journal.