President Trump signed an executive order aimed at reforming the live entertainment ticketing industry by targeting ticket scalping, bot usage, and hidden « junk fees.”
President Donald Trump signed another executive order this
week, taking the total up to 109 in a little longer than two months.
Award-winning musical artist Kid Rock joined Trump as he
signed an executive order aimed at protecting fans from « exploitative
ticket scalping » and reforming the U.S. live entertainment ticketing
industry.
« Anyone who’s bought a concert ticket in the last
decade [or] maybe 20 years, not matter what your politics are, knows it’s a
conundrum,” Rock said. “You buy a ticket for $100. By the time you check out,
it’s $170. You don’t know what you’re getting charged for, but more
importantly, these bots come in to get all the good tickets to your favorite
shows you want to go to, and then they’re relisted immediately for sometimes 400%
[to] 500% markup, and the artists don’t see any of that money.”
Rock called Trump’s order “a great first step.”
“I would love, down the road, if there [would] be some legislation
that we could actually put a cap on the resale of tickets, and I’m a capitalist
and deregulation guy.”
Rock said some European countries have tried implementing a
cap on the highest price a third-party vendor can charge for the resale of
tickets.
In November 2022, Ticketmaster had to cancel the public sale
of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” due to overwhelming demand. Some fans paid more
than 70 times face value to get a ticket to see Swift, who called the whole
ordeal, “excruciating.
