Amid fears Live Nation Entertainment is taking over the world and will soon charge $50 service fees on $15 tickets, at least one state isn’t putting up with it — at least in theory. New York’s 2007 law allowing customers to resell tickets at high prices is no longer in effect as of last Saturday, reports BrooklynVegan (via New York Daily News). Instead of renewing the law, New York lawmakers are letting it expire, which means the previous anti-scalping law, passed in the 1920s, is making a comeback.
Governor David Paterson has written a letter to 56 ticket brokers, including StubHub, warning them the original law is back on. “Ticket resellers must act in accordance with the laws of New York State,” reads a portion of the letter.
Paterson’s aides claim the law prohibits reselling for more than $2 above face value, although NBC reported back in 2007 the original law allowed markups up to 45 percent for tickets to arena and stadium shows, limiting markups to 20 percent for venues with a capacity of less than 6,000. NBC also reported that — big surprise — the original law was “widely ignored.”
The law goes beyond scalpers though; it prohibits service and delivery fees, meaning Ticketbastard is going to have to either be less of a bastard or…just raise ticket prices.
We all know which of those two Ticketmaster is more likely to choose. So mark this one down as not only “widely ignored,” but “widely sidestepped,” as well. Free market: 1, regulation: 0.