Blackburn presses Live Nation about ticket bots at Senate hearing
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U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn led a panel of federal lawmakers Wednesday in pressuring corporate concert giant Live Nation to do more to address online ticket scalping.
Why it matters: Advocates who spoke during a Senate hearing argued the secondhand ticket market makes concerts too expensive for fans and hampers an artist's ability to make a living.
State of play: The Senate is considering multiple proposals to regulate the secondhand ticket industry, including a plan from Blackburn to target automated bots used to buy large swaths of tickets to popular events. Scalpers using the bots resell the tickets to fans at significantly marked-up rates.
Zoom in: Blackburn sponsored the Main Event Ticketing Act, which would strengthen existing federal laws and require Live Nation to report successful bot attacks to the Federal Trade Commission.
- Sen. Ted Cruz — who convened Wednesday's hearing of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, technology and data privacy hearing with Blackburn — sponsored the Ticket Act, which would require sellers to display the total cost of a ticket, including fees, at the time of purchase.
The intrigue: The hearing included testimony from Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie. He told the committee that "music fans and artists have been getting screwed by the ticketing system."
- "I'm in a unique position to testify because unlike most of my peers, I'm beholden to no one. No record companies, no managers, no corporate endorsements or deals. To put it plainly, I ain't scared."
- Ritchie told senators he supported reforms to the country's ticketing system including that artists should control who sells tickets to their shows, resale tickets should have price caps and existing legislation regulating bots should be enforced more vigorously.
What she's saying: In an interview with Axios before the hearing, Blackburn criticized Live Nation for not helping federal regulators enforce an existing law that bans the use of bots.
- Blackburn co-authored a letter to Live Nation last year demanding answers on their secondhand ticketing practices. She tells Axios the hearing was needed because "you don't get adequate responses from them."
- "I thoroughly believe in letting the marketplace address an issue," Blackburn says. "But as I've found, they've refused to, number one, admit there's a problem and, two, address the problem."
The other side: Live Nation executive Dan Wall testified at the Senate hearing that the company does more than anyone to combat the use of bots. Wall said Live Nation supports a complete ban on the use of automated software to buy tickets.
- The company also backs a ban on speculative ticket sales, where a seller offers up a ticket for purchase before it is available to the public.
Zoom out: The FTC opened an investigation last year into whether Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, does enough to stop bots.
- Live Nation is also the subject of an antitrust lawsuit by the Department of Justice.