Pollstar (02/01/23) Lind, J.R.

President Biden has called on Congress to pass the Junk Fee Protection Act, which includes targeting "excessive" fees tacked on to event tickets sold online. He said at a meeting of his Competition Council that the measure will "lower the huge service fees that companies like Ticketmaster slap on tickets for concerts or sporting events that can easily add hundreds of bucks to a family's night out." What constitutes "excessive" fees, an enforcement framework and other details will have to be formulated during the legislative process, while Biden also urged full disclosure of fees on the front-end of ticket sales, or "all-in pricing." Additionally, the president said he would ask lawmakers to mandate that venues and ticket companies disclose the number of holdback tickets, which the National Association of Ticket Brokers' Gary Adler welcomed as a measure to rein in a "deceptive marketing practice." Adler continued: "Ticket buyers deserve to know when and how many tickets will go on sale so that they can make more informed purchase decisions." Ticketmaster said it "strongly supports ticketing reforms that will benefit artists and fans, prevent fraud and clean up fraudulent practices in resale markets. These basic steps should be the things everyone agrees on, including mandating all-in pricing and outlawing speculative ticketing. We stand ready to work with the president and Congress on many common sense ticketing reforms, while also speaking out against proposed legislation that would benefit scalpers over artists and fans."

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