After surviving a last-minute lobbying effort from third-party ticketing resale companies including StubHub, Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek, the Maryland House passed Senate Bill 539 on Monday. If signed into law by Gov. Wes Moore, the bill will protect consumers during the sale and resale of tickets via third-party websites for events in the state of Maryland. The legislation is not complete win for consumers, but it does bar the sale of speculative tickets—the deceptive practice of selling tickets a person does not actually own. Maryland is the second state in the country to prohibit such sales.
Initially filed by Maryland state Sen. Dawn Gile and Del. C.T. Wilson in January, the consumer protection bill originally sought to cap the price of resales to the face value of the original ticket. That language was removed entirely in order to pass the Senate Finance committee on March 13. Lawmakers from both parties opposed the price cap, in some cases based on personal interests.
During the House’s Economic Matters Committee meeting on Feb. 20, Del. Pam Queen, a Democrat who represents District 14 in Montgomery County, said she is a season ticket holder for various sports teams in and out of the state, and has resold her tickets via third-party websites. Queen questioned the price cap saying, “If I can’t go that game, I can’t make an extra $50 or $100 off of that? People want that ticket.”
On the other side of the aisle, Republican Sen. Stephen Hershey Jr., a season ticket holder for the Dallas Cowboys, who has received campaign contributions from StubHub, also opposed to the price cap. Hershey’s representative did not respond to a request for comment.
One major issue Maryland lawmakers sought to deal with was figuring out how to differentiate individual buyers who want to resell their tickets from ticket brokers who use bots to grab up tickets the moment they go on sale. Bots enable third-party sellers to sell speculative tickets to consumers who are unaware that they’re buying tickets to a show that the seller doesn’t actually own and haven’t gone on sale yet. In December 2016, the Congress passed the Better Online Tickets Sales Act, which made it illegal for ticket brokers to use bots to buy large quantities of tickets the moment they went on sale, but as anyone who tried to buy tickets to Beyoncé’s or Taylor Swift’s 2023 tours know, the law has been mostly ineffective.
Still, there are some significant wins for consumers in the bill. Since it will now be illegal to sell speculative tickets, any third party allowing such ticket sales on their site will be fined, making Maryland the first state to implement such a penalty on third-party websites. A single violation could cost a company up to $10,000, with subsequent violations costing up to $25,000 each. Anyone can provide a tip to the state’s Consumer Protection Division.
“It is such an enormous step in the right direction for consumer protection and ticketing reform,” says Audrey Fix Schaefer, communications director of I.M.P., the promoter that operates Merriweather Post Pavilion, as well as D.C.’s 9:30 Club, the Anthem, and others. “To have them make it illegal to advertise fake tickets is huge. … What else in the world can you sell that you don’t own?”
Under the bill, ticket resellers will be required to list a specific seat location, including the section, row, and seat number, whereas currently they are only required to show ‘zones’ on third-party resale websites. And sellers would be required to itemize the prices for tickets, showing the fees, taxes, and any shipping costs added to the face value, so a potential buyer knows the total price before making a final purchase.
“What’s happening now that’s so troubling [is] the websites … are trying to mimic us—so it does trick people into thinking that they’re buying from us,” Fix Schaefer says. “They never do it to sell it at face value. They’re doing it to make a huge profit off somebody else. So if people have their eyes popped by the ultimate price, maybe they will take more time to go to the venue’s website. … These companies have spent a lot of money on advertising and on websites to lure people into thinking that they’re buying from us when they’re not.”
The bill also directs the Office of the Maryland Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division to gather data on the event ticket market in the state to evaluate a variety of concerns, including ticket costs in the primary versus secondary markets, the resale of fraudulent and counterfeit tickets, and the illegal use of bots to purchase tickets specifically to resell. The attorney general is supposed to file their findings and recommendations to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Economic Matters Committee, on or before Dec. 1, 2024.
“I’m thrilled to have championed a bill that makes Maryland one of the best places for concert-goers in the country,” Gile tells City Paper. “While we’ve made major progress this year, I also look forward to working with stakeholders, including the Office of the Attorney General, to build on this work so that scalpers can no longer have safe harbor in our state.”
Moore is expected to sign the bill into law, and it would take effect on July 1, 2024.