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Arizona Lawmakers Consider New Resale Ticketing Bill
IndustryLegal
February 18, 2019
Olivia Perreault
Some Arizona lawmakers are working toward making resale ticketing rules more relaxed with new legislation.
The bill, which was introduced by Rep. T.J. Schope, R-Coolidge, at a House Commerce meeting last week, would allow consumers the ability to do whatever they’d like with their unwanted tickets. Additionally, the bill would enforce ticket sellers that don’t offer non-transferable tickets to offer transferable options as well.
According to ABC 15, backers of the bill told lawmakers that primary market ticketing giants like Ticketmaster are able to prevent ticket holders from reselling their tickets on the secondary market by preventing entry if the eventgoer’s credit card does not match the card that purchased the tickets.
“Through technology they’re able to restrict how tickets are transferred, given away or resold,” Laura Dooley of StubHub said of the primary marketplaces.
Backers of the bill went on to note that the current rules in place enforce that primary marketplaces lead the ticketing market, stifling competition. However, opponents of the legislation say the bill would hurt prospective ticket buyers. Representatives from the Suns and Diamondbacks testified against the bill, and said that if passed, Arizona citizens would have to worry about fraudulent tickets and scalpers would have easier access to tickets.
“We agree with all of the professional sports teams and entertainment venues in the state in our opposition of this legislation,” the Diamondbacks said in a statement to ABC 15. “This bill would hurt our fans who can get great tickets at a reasonable price. HB 2560 would cause unintended harm to the Arizona economy and the only party that would benefit from this would be scalpers, who would increase their profits at the expense of our fans.”
The bill will be discussed again in another meeting tomorrow, February 19.
This legislation is similar to Utah’s proposed bill to limit ticket resale restrictions. The bill, introduced by Utah senator Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork, would allow ticket issuers to freely transfer tickets, prohibit ticket sellers from penalizing buyers when they resell tickets where they’d like, and “provides a specific set of exemptions to allow flexibility to ticket issuers while protecting Utah fans.”
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