PPI’s Vice President and Director of Competition Policy, Diana Moss, has submitted written testimony in the DC Council’s upcoming October 22nd hearing on proposed B26-0224: Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment (RESALE) Amendment Act of 2025. PPI’s testimony opposes the legislation.
One provision in B26-0224 imposes price caps on the resale of live events tickets. A second provision allows a ticket issuer to restrict the transferability of tickets for sale in the resale market. Both of these provisions will stifle competition in resale, handing the live events monopolist, Live Nation-Ticketmaster, even more market power. This would be an indisputable win for Live Nation-Ticketmaster and a crushing loss for consumers and artists.
To protect competition in resale — which is indisputably the only source of competition in ticketing — PPI respectfully urges the DC Council to remove the price cap provision and amend the ticket transferability provision in B26-0224 to ensure unconditional ticket transferability. At the same time, PPI commends the drafters for including a provision to promote ticket price transparency. All-in pricing fosters consumer choice by providing the information necessary for consumers to make informed ticket-buying decisions. This will protect consumers, at the same time it spurs badly needed competition in ticketing, almost all of which comes from the resale market.
