It's not just you: Like groceries and other expenses, going to concerts, plays and sporting events has gotten more costly. Ticket prices have risen nearly 20% since 2021, according to data collected by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
A bill pending in the Texas House of Representatives aims to address some common frustrations with the ticketing process by making it easier to see the total cost of the ticket up front.
But opponents say the language prioritizes ticket resellers over fans by preventing venues and artists from placing a price cap on resale tickets.
"I hope the legislators hear that this is an important issue and the bill as written does not solve the issue and will make it worse," said Warren Tranquada, president and CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. "I really think it needs to be thrown out, and we can start over and work collaboratively with all the players, secondary ticket providers, primary ticket providers and artists to come up with a reasonable solution that protects customers."
The measure, House Bill 3621, would:
- Require sellers to display the full price of the ticket — including the fees but not taxes — up front
- Prevent the price from jumping during the transaction
- Require sellers to be transparent about the location of the seats, when applicable
"If you stop there, then people will say, this is a great bill," said Serona Elton, chair of the music industry department at the University of Miami. "But that's misleading because that is only one small piece of a multipart bill where the other parts of the bill actually do the opposite in terms of protecting the consumer."
The bill would also:
- Prevent venues from barring secondary sales of their tickets, with a few exceptions, including when all ticket proceeds are donated to charity.
- Prohibit price restrictions for tickets on the secondary market, and require all tickets to be delivered by the seventh day after purchase.
- Prevent sellers from listing tickets they do not have while still allowing the use of concierge services, where consumers pay someone else to acquire tickets on their behalf.
While introducing the bill for discussion before the House's Trade, Workforce and Economic Development Committee on Wednesday, the bill's author said he did not understand why the measure was controversial.
"Not long ago, buying a ticket was a simple process," said state Rep. Benjamin Bumgarner, R-Flower Mound. "When you bought a ticket, it was yours. You could hold it in your hand, give it to a friend or sell it if your plans changed. Technology was supposed to make the process easier, instead it has made it more complicated and frustrating.
"The prices are higher. The fees are hidden. The tickets take forever to show up. What used to be easy, like giving a ticket to a friend, is now confusing or outright blocked."
Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, put forward an identical bill in the state senate, and was unavailable for an interview prior to publication.
Edwin Cabaniss, owner of the Kessler Theater, Heights Theater and Longhorn Ballroom, traveled to Austin for the committee hearing. He spoke on behalf of the Music Venue Alliance - Texas and said the bill would hurt small businesses.
Venues negotiate ticket prices with artists and their management based on the capacity of the space and how much money the band needs to be paid or the max they want their fans to have to pay per ticket.
"Artists and consumers and venues all want to keep the prices at a reasonable and fair amount," he told KERA in an interview before the hearing. "And you've got these third parties that are not part of the negotiations set by the artist and the venue … and they're grabbing those tickets and then they're putting them on sale sometimes 300 to 400% higher than what the agreed-upon price is from us and the artist."
Requiring primary ticket sellers to deliver tickets earlier allows them to change hands more frequently, driving up prices for consumers, he said.
Katy Smith, who works at Vivid Seats, a ticket marketplace headquartered in Chicago. Smith noted that the company has 200 employees in its Coppell office and said the bill supports Texas jobs.
"It will ensure that Vivid Seats, an employer and job creator here in Texas, can continue to thrive, compete, and help fans access the events they love, a job my colleagues and I take very seriously," she said.
Representatives from the Texas Ticket Sellers Association, TicketNetwork and TicketCity also testified in favor of the bill.
Tranquada, of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, knows that the secondary market won't go away and said there's a place for a system that allows people to get rid of a ticket they no longer want or can't use.
"But when people are charging 10, 15, 20 times face value, that's just ripping people off. That is price gouging," he said. "If anything, the state should be putting in a maximum limit."
Tranquada would also like to see a prohibition on deceptive websites that sell tickets by pretending to represent artists and venues.
With album sales down and low pay rates for streaming, artists increasingly rely on live performances for a significant piece of their income. Inflation has hit the industry, too.
"It costs more today than it did a decade ago — than it did two decades ago — to operate a large arena. Whether it's staff wages and minimum wage has increased," said Elton, who studies the music industry. "Whether it's the cost of putting on some of these really big, you know, spectacular shows that involve all kinds of special effects and lighting and moving platforms and dancers, right? All of that comes with additional cost."
The resale market contributes to these costs too, she continued. When bots or professional resellers purchase large quantities of tickets from the primary seller, they're able to push demand to the secondary market and sell seats at a higher price.
"The artist may have wanted that ticket to be sold at a particular price point that they felt was reasonable for their fans to be able to afford. Now the fan is not being given a chance to buy the ticket at that price. They're instead looking at a ticket that may be ten times that amount, and often thinking it's the artist's fault," Elton said.
"That money that does not flow back into the ecosystem that actually brings those concerts to you. That money doesn't flow back to the artist. It doesn't flow back to that concert venue that we wanna keep open and [to] have more and more shows. It doesn't flow back to concert promoters who are the ones that take a risk on funding shows."
Musicians and sport franchises differ in this respect, said Dean Budnick, co-author of The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped.
"They [franchises] receive some of the proceeds when tickets are sold on a sanctioned marketplace. This is because those teams have entered into exclusive contractual relationships with ticketing companies, most often Ticketmaster," he explained.
"Artists, by contrast, don't strike similar Ticketmaster deals but instead utilize whatever service has contracted with a given venue. … So artists don't receive a similar piece of the secondary service fees."
Solving the issue is complicated, Budnick said.
"There are times when an artist might want the primary ticket seller to have control, as it allows the artist to implement a policy that ensures tickets are not resold for exorbitant fees. One way this can be achieved is if tickets are only sold through the primary ticket seller's secondary platform, where prices are capped," he followed up over email.
"However, this policy also ensures that companies like Ticketmaster increase their market dominance (by extending the company's reach from the primary market into the secondary market), which makes people uncomfortable."
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