A new bill would prohibit ticket companies from limiting where North Carolina buyers could resell tickets for concerts and sporting events.

But House Bill 598 faces opposition from the Carolina Panthers, arts advocates and others, who say the measure would cause some artists or acts to skip the state and would harm small venues.

The bill passed the House commerce and economic development committee Tuesday. Bills must pass one full chamber before Thursday’s crossover deadline to have a chance of becoming law this year.

Both sides argued that if they lost, customers could pay higher prices for tickets.

Rep. David Willis, R-Union, said the bill is a consumer protection bill that values the free market.

“What we’re asking is that if you buy a ticket to a football game, a basketball game, a show, that you have the right, as the owner of that product, to then turn around and choose which platform you resell that product,” said Willis, one of the bill’s sponsors.

The bill is largely aimed at ticket broker Ticketmaster, which controls much of the ticket market in North Carolina outside of college athletics. And it could make it easier for ticket resellers such as SeatGeek, StubHub and VividSeats to compete. 

Ticketmaster bills itself as the world’s largest ticket marketplace and processes 500 million tickets each year across more than 30 states. 

Ticketmaster didn’t immediately respond to WRAL’s request for comment on the legislation.

Ticketmaster is the official ticket marketplace of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

A representative from SeatGeek, a secondary ticket broker, told the committee that six other states, including Utah, Virginia and New York, have implemented similar laws.

“The live event industry is flourishing,” said Joe Freeman, SeatGeek’s vice president for government relations.

Jake Burns, a top executive with the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC, warned that the bill would have unintended negative consequences, including taking rights away from teams, artists and venues and giving them to secondary ticket resellers.

“It’s going to prevent us from attracting events to the state of North Carolina,” Burns told the committee. “There are certain events, large events, that have strict no-resale policies, like the Savannah Bananas. Several major artists don’t let their tickets resold at high prices. We can’t attract those artists and those events to the state.”

The Savannah Bananas, a popular exhibition baseball team similar to basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters, prohibit reselling above face value and include a provision that tickets won’t be resold in their ticketing agreement, according to a spokeswoman.

“If you told me two months ago that I would be standing in opposition, shoulder to shoulder with Ticketmaster, I would have told you you were crazy,” said Nate MaGaha the executive director of Arts North Carolina, a group that represents small arts organizations and independent venues across the state. 

MaGaha said the bill would limit the ability of small venues to “curb those problems with speculative tickets and with the ticket resale markups.”

The bill would prohibit ticket issuers from requiring a minimum or maximum price for the resale of a ticket. It says that a ticket issuer couldn’t discriminate against a secondary ticket exchange seller or purchaser. Ticket issuers would have to deliver electronic tickets within 72 hours or as soon as possible. Ticket issuers would still be allowed to establish limits on the number of tickets purchased at one time on their site and could mark some tickets as non-transferable.

The bill would also prohibit ticket resellers from using websites that mimic the name of artists, venues or events, a provision that both sides agreed with during the committee hearing.

Willis said lawmakers should be protecting the people of North Carolina.

“They have full control over when the tickets go on sale, what the prices are and how they’re sold,” Willis said. “And then you get charged fees on the front end. If you go to resell those, you’re limited to the vendor that you can use and then you get charged on the back end. As so the opposition today isn’t of the value or the ability to protect the consumer, it’s about their bottom line. I don’t think it’s our responsibility to protect those businesses that are manipulating the system. I think it’s our business to sit here and protect the citizens of North Carolina.”

Source: wral.com