Pascrell Disappointed by New Jersey Ticket Legislation

Live event bill just signed into law a mixed bag, will do little to tackle larger market problems

PATERSON, NJ – Today, Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (NJ-09), author of the only comprehensive federal legislation to reform the live event ticket industry, reacted to the enactment of New Jersey Assembly Bill 4259, an act that restructures New Jersey state ticket sales law.

“The live ticket sales market has been increasingly hostile to music and sports fans just looking to enjoy some entertainment without being gouged. Too much of this bill takes the wrong approach to addressing the unregulated, multi-billion dollar ticket marketplace. Addressing speculative ticket reselling is a welcome policy. But the whole law reads like a wish list from Ticketmaster, a company almost universally loathed by consumers. Eliminating limits on withholding tickets from the public while hindering transparency in pricing are steps in the wrong direction.

“I want to thank Governor Murphy for his strong signing statement indicating the need for more comprehensive solutions. Clear, national standards for the live event ticket market are essential. In fact, the bill’s enactment makes the need for federal legislation tackling live event ticket abuses that much more urgent. I will continue to push Congress to pass my BOSS Act legislation to finally add consumer protections and bring some basic transparency to the industry. And I will continue to demand the breaking up of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly that rips off millions. Consumers deserve so much better.”

Congressman Pascrell was an early critic of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, and repeatedly urged the Obama administration to reject it, warning that the union would crush competition and harm consumers. After Ticketmaster infamously redirected Bruce Springsteen fans to its secondary site TicketsNow to buy marked up seats without notice, Pascrell introduced the BOSS Act in 2009 to create better transparency in the sale of live event tickets and provide overhaul reform of the unregulated secondary market. The legislation was offered in subsequent congresses and was the subject of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in 2016. Rep. Pascrell will be reintroducing a revamped version of his bill. Pascrell had a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on his attempts to impose greater positive regulation on the fraught live events ticket market. In April, the Government Accountability Office released a study commissioned by Pascrell and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ-06) which found that the $9 billion event ticketing market is dominated by the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly, whose use of onerous fees and practices have harmed both consumers and competition. In July, Reps. Pascrell and Pallone wrote a letter to the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission calling on the FTC to “act against deceptive and unfair practices in [the live events ticket] industry relating to hidden fees, sale of speculative tickets, and misleading resale sites” and to “investigate reports of anticompetitive conduct in the highly-concentrated ticketing marketplace.”

A copy of the signing statement Governor Murphy issued upon his approval of A.4259 is available here.

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