Photo of Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) has hailed the launching of a congressional investigation of the live event ticketing industry by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pascrell called the launch “a watershed moment” in fixing the perceived ills that he sees in the industry.
Along with the launch of the investigation, a group of representatives sent letters to the major players in both the primary and secondary ticket marketplace, requesting them to provide information about service fees, the transparency of ticket holdbacks, the dangers of speculative ticket listings, white label sites, and ticket transferability.
These representatives included:
- Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
- Greg Walden (R-OR)
- Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Diana DeGette (D-CO)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
The companies contacted included Live Nation Entertainment/Ticketmaster, which is the largest in the industry and which at the moment is under a consent decree from the Department of Justice.
Rep. Pascrell has long called for regulation of the live events ticketing industry. He has also long been a critic of the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster, having urged the Obama administration to block it on the grounds that it would impair competition and ultimately harm consumers.
In May of last year, Pascrell wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he called the live events ticketing marketplace broken, and he detailed his attempts to fix it by increasing regulation of it.
Toward this end, he is the principal sponsor of the BOSS Act (H.R. 3248), which is a bill that he says “will impose a basic level of transparency to the ticket industry so fans have a fair chance to purchase tickets on the primary market.” It would also protect consumers who buy tickets on the secondary market.
The bill is currently being considered by the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Pascrell believes that the investigation will help get it passed.