Gov. Healey enlists Noah Kahan to promote proposed cap on ticket resale prices

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced she is proposing legislation to cap the price of resale tickets for concerts and other live events to limit price gouging.

Entitled An Act Relative to Closing the Great Divide between Ticket Prices and Affordability, or The Great Divide Act, the name is a nod to singer Noah Kahan, who just played four sold-out shows at Fenway Park in early July, setting a venue record.

Proposed legislation

The proposal works off of a similar bill proposed by state Senator Dylan Fernandes last month. It does not impact sporting events.

Here's what it proposes:

1. A limit for resale tickets for live events to a 10% profit – meaning, the ticket can only be resold for 110% its original price.
2. A cap on sale fees to 10% for the resale websites – meaning, a $110 resale ticket could only have a maximum fee of $11.
3. Making selling speculative tickets illegal – meaning, you can only resell a ticket that you have physical possession of.

Healey's pitch was met with a ringing endorsement – literally. A red telephone was staged next to the Governor during her press conference, and she answered a "phone call" – a prerecorded video – from Noah Kahan himself, the inspiration for the bill.

"I love my fans, and I want to protect them however I can," Kahan, a Vermont native, said in the video. "Artists alone could not tackle the market manipulation of secondary resellers."

The news was welcome by people who had just attended the concert and spent exorbitant amounts for tickets – like Kelly Balko of Rutland, whose husband spent over $2,000 for a pair of tickets on a resale site. "Had I known how much my husband paid, I never would have let him buy the tickets," she said. "There needs to be some kind of regulation. People who want to go to these concerts can't because it's too expensive," she added.

The proposal was welcomed not only by consumers, but by Ticketmaster/Live Nation, too. The company wrote to WBZ, saying, "We support legislation that addresses the real issues in ticketing: predatory resale sites and scalpers who scam fans and siphon millions from the live event experience while contributing nothing back."

Resale companies criticize Ticketmaster monopoly 

But several other ticket resale companies – as well as one original ticket sale company – say the proposal glazes over the real problem: Ticketmaster's monopoly on the market.

"If the goal is making tickets more affordable for fans, aiming this bill at resale misses the mark by not holding Live Nation-Ticketmaster to the same standard," wrote Joe Freeman, the Vice President of Government Affairs at SeatGeek. "You can't fix ticket prices in Massachusetts while ignoring the company a federal court just ruled runs an illegal monopoly and sells a huge portion of the state's concert tickets. Ban speculative tickets, enforce existing anti-bot and deceptive marketing laws, and hold Live Nation-Ticketmaster accountable. Don't hand it an exemption."

An advocacy group called Ticket Policy Forum, which represents StubHub and other resale agencies, wrote, "We emphatically support banning deceptive speculative tickets and agree with Governor Healey that tickets are more expensive than ever, but her proposal ignores and exempts the illegal Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly, which continues to push prices up and is the source of the vast majority of tickets for fans in Massachusetts," adding, "Disappointingly, the legislation only targets resale and does nothing to curtail Ticketmaster raising box office prices through dynamic and platinum pricing. That is how Ticketmaster takes advantage of fans." 

Governor Healey says she plans to propose the legislation in her supplemental budget for this year. 

"I just want to make sure that people actually have the opportunity to enjoy those experiences," Healey said. "That's really important to me."