Protect Your Ticket Rights, Texas!

A bipartisan duo of lawmakers in Texas have introduced legislation that will ban frustrating hidden fees that surprise consumers at the last minute with a higher total cost. As an additional bonus, it will protect Texans’ continued ability to freely buy, sell, or even just give away tickets to their favorite games and concerts. It is a commonsense piece of legislation that benefits consumers. Of course, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, and others who would benefit from a lack of competition if the bill does not pass disagree. However, that is expected from the for-profit players in the system scheming to exert more control and squeeze more profit from fans.

HB 3621 introduced by Representative Ben Bumgarner, and SB 1820 introduced by Senator Nathan Johnson, would protect Texans’ personal property rights over their purchased tickets and protect the free market for ticket sales in the state while improving transparency and requiring all-in pricing. Protect Ticket Rights supports these bills. We encourage lawmakers to consider other needed reforms, such as requiring the disclosure of deceptive ticket holdbacks used by artists, teams, venues and box officer ticketers to create fake scarcity in order to take advantage of consumers, requiring ticket sellers to report suspected illegal software bot attacks to law enforcement, refund requirements for cancelled and postponed events, banning deceptive undisclosed speculative ticket sales, and prohibiting deceptive websites and URLs in ticket advertising. 

HB3621/SB1820 will: 

• Require transparent All-In, Upfront pricing – no more hidden fee surprises at check out, the first price consumers see is the final price, before taxes. 
• Ban companies from changing the price of the ticket once a consumer adds the ticket to their shopping cart – no more dynamically priced tickets that jump up price while you are trying to buy them.
• Restrict the resale of charitable tickets that were initially offered for free.
• Protects the rights of Texans to freely use, sell, or give away purchased tickets by codifying their right to transfer their tickets to someone else, if they choose to, on their own terms.
• Ensures the original seller of tickets, which in many cases is Live Nation/Ticketmaster, cannot dictate the terms under which a ticket buyer in Texas seeks to resell their tickets. 
• Safeguards ticket holders by not allowing venues to deny a person entry with a legitimate ticket on the basis they purchased their ticket from a competing seller to Ticketmaster, etc.
• Requires ticket sellers to deliver tickets to consumers within 2 weeks of their purchase. No more waiting for 6 months or longer for your tickets to be delivered.

Background: Why Ticket Transferability Must be Protected
A market that includes free transferability of tickets allows Texas ticket buyers to comparison shop between companies that sell tickets, which can provide substantial savings. According to a report from Protect Ticket Rights, ticket buyers in Texas saved over $35 million in 2023 by buying tickets from the secondary resale market, which in many cases were lower the prices offered by the primary seller or venue box office. The report analyzed data from more than 600,000 ticket sales on ticket marketplaces that offer tickets to events in Texas.

Ticket transferability was for many years a foregone presumption, until, as detailed in the complaint brought by the US Department of Justice and 40 state attorneys general, Live Nation/Ticketmaster allegedly began using its ticket technology to restrict transferability to foreclose competition from other ticket sellers. This is not theoretical. Live Nation/Ticketmaster is quick to call resale names like “scalping” and claim that resale restrictions are aligned with the desire of their artist clients. This disregards the basic fact that once an artist or ticketer sells a ticket at its asking price, possession and utilization of that ticket transfers from the original seller (box office) to the ticketholder. Meanwhile Live Nation/Ticketmaster has used its revolving barcode digital ticketing technology (called "Safe Tix") to immediately invalidate tickets sold or transferred by marketplaces including StubHub, Seat Geek, and Vivid Seats, leaving hundreds of fans stranded outside when they were denied entry. This is among many alleged monopolistic abuses that the U.S. Department of Justice and 40 state attorneys general investigated and that will come up at the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly trial in 2026.

If a digital ticket is held captive by Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s app and the company can block a ticketholder’s ability to freely transfer it, consumers will have a more difficult time or potentially a smaller inventory of tickets from which to purchase when comparison shipping. This benefits only Live Nation/Ticketmaster. When it’s the only source for tickets, it can more easily and arbitrarily raise prices and fees.

Once you pay for your tickets, like your home or car, how and if you resell your ticket is only your business, including if you give it away, resell it at a loss just to ensure the seat doesn’t go empty, or if you can no longer attend and wish to sell your tickets for more than you paid because the market will bear such a price. You bought them, the original seller was paid, and now they are yours. Live Nation/Ticketmaster usually leans on a very outdated argument that tickets are revokable licenses and that event organizers need this codification in order to deal with unruly patrons. This argument is unpersuasive and outdated. The alleged precedent never condoned the abuse of tickets being considered a license for the purposes of market monopolization. When Live Nation/Ticketmaster and its clients make this argument, lawmakers should provide it as evidence to their state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice.

HB 3621 and SB 1820 will protect ticketholders by prohibiting venues from discriminating against ticketholders for using a resold ticket, and it will expressly protect Texans’ freedom to transfer their purchased tickets however they wish.

Ticket Resale in Texas Offers Great Deals
There are several social media accounts that track ticket deals, including Cheap Texas Tickets (@CheapTXTickets), which recently posted $7 baseball tickets when the original price at the box office was $35 plus fees. A family of five could afford these resale tickets for the price of a single ticket at the box office. And, these $7 tickets are not stolen or fake. They were purchased at full price but being offered at a discount because the ticketholder prefers not to take a total loss, and doesn’t want the seats to go empty. Fans filling seats also buy food, snacks, beverages, and merchandise. When a ticket is resold, it’s a win-win.

Ticket Transferability is Popular
A national survey of 800 adults by Protect Ticket Rights revealed findings consistent with the goals of HB 3621 and SB 1820. The poll found:

• 8 in 10 (81.6%) agreed “If you purchase a ticket to an event, you own it, and rules should require that you have the flexibility to give it away or resell it if you so choose.”
• 86.4% disagreed when asked “Should venues be able to deny your entry at an event or cancel your tickets because you bought them from a marketplace like StubHub, Seat Geek or Vivid Seats.”
• Nearly 80% (79.3%) support “new rules that guarantee your right to transfer, resell, or give away your tickets however you choose.”

Click Here: Texas Ticket Resale Savings Report