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www.nyfanfairness.comwww.facebook.com/NYFanFairness
SUPPORTING & PROTECTINGThe rights of ticket buyers,
schools, tourism, non-profits, and economic activity.
hroughout America
T, there is a trend by the major players in the ticketing industry to
mandate restricted ticketing for concerts, shows, and sporting events. This means that, even after you’ve purchased a ticket, they still own it and can mandate who gets to sit in
that seat and how the ticket (that you purchased!) is treated.
Under a restricted ticketing scheme, the only way to use your ticket (that you purchased!) is to show up at the arena or venue with the credit card that was used to purchase the ticket. No more giving tickets as a gift. No more reselling your tickets if family or professional responsibilities come up. No more meeting your friends inside at the show.
Restricted ticketing discriminates against underbanked communities, hurts schools & non-profit organizations, depresses tourism & other important economic activity, and insults fans.
The issue of restricted ticketing for sporting events and concerts causes worries across the political spectrum. Progressives, conservatives, and libertarians share concerns on this, as do advocates for communities and families struggling financially.
Schools, parents, and non-profits care deeply about these issues, as restricted ticketing would drastically impact the ability to raise funds for programs & services.
Fans oppose restricted ticketing because it runs counter to how real people in the real world use their tickets.
Under a restricted ticketing scheme, when tickets for an event are purchased, those tickets are tied directly to the purchasers’ credit card. Buyers must have and show that same credit card with a photo ID to get inside the event. In effect, these tickets become non-transferable.
The construction of stadiums and event venues are almost always heavily subsidized with taxpayer dollars. It is grossly inappropriate for them to then turn away from our communities and schools in pursuit of greater profits on tickets that have already been sold once.
Diverse organizations from throughout the state oppose restricted ticketing. For different reasons—all of them important!—they agree that restricted ticketing is wrong for New York.
Speaking Up Against Restricted Ticketing.
“ R e s t r i c t e d � i c k e � i n g d i s c r i m i n a t e s a g a i n s t underbanked communi�ies, hurts schools & non-profit organiza� ions , depresses tourism & other important economic ac�ivity, and insults fans.”
ABOUT US
MEMBERS OF NYFFF:
New Yorkers for Fan Fairness (NYFFF) is a diverse coalition of New Yorkers from every corner of the state who have joined together to speak up for the rights of the ticket buying public, community institutions & schools, underbanked neighborhoods, and to improve the overall fan experience.
Too often, sports teams, musical acts, arenas, venues and other live performance venues and artists seem to have forgotten the most important element of the equation: the fans and their neighborhoods. Whether fighting for New Yorkers’ common-sense rights to actually own the tickets they’ve bought, working to ensure that there is more transparency in the price and availability of tickets offered to the public, or organizing to ensure that the rights and privileges of ticket buyers and community institutions which depend on gifted tickets are not being taken away, NYFFF is working diligently on behalf of all New Yorkers.
Speaking up for the rights of the
ticket buying public.
RESTRICTIVE TICKETING HURTS CONSUMERS
BY RAFAEL ESPINAL | MAR 27, 2015
Consumers—the backbone of the American economy—are all too often underrepresented in government or prevented from full economic participation. As chair of the New York City Council Committee on Consumer Affairs, I am concerned about the impact that restrictive ticketing policies have on the consumer, particularly those who live in underbanked areas and do not possess a credit or debit card.
Restrictive ticketing is essentially the practice of requiring that a credit card be used to make a ticket purchase or presented to gain entry to a concert or sporting event. Increasingly, tickets are only available for sale online rather than at a box office where cash purchases can be made. These two practices negatively impact the unbanked segment of our population, which the city's Office of Financial Empowerment estimates to be 825,000 New Yorkers.
The alarming number of city residents without a bank account reflects a larger concern regarding the lack of access to traditional forms of banking in low-income neighborhoods. Although access to banking is a paramount issue in underserved areas, reforming the policy on restrictive ticketing would help until the larger issue can be addressed.
The premise for restrictive ticketing is as a recourse to ticket scalping, but the practice has unintentional consequences. Restricting the use of a ticket to the owner of the credit card used to purchase it prevents sharing or gifting, and effectively ends the popular practice of donating tickets to schools and community groups for fundraisers.
As technology continues to make some lives easier, we must be mindful of the difficulties it can create for others. A policy requiring you to have a credit card in order to take your family to a game or concert is misguided and disproportionately impacts low-income consumers.
The growing national trend of restrictive ticketing may be seen by some as a way to address illegal resale, but it also fails to put the consumer first. There are already laws prohibiting scalping, and they should be enforced. Now is the time for government to work with the business community to construct policies that better address the core issue of ticket scalping while maintaining equal access for all consumers.
New York City Councilman Rafael Espinal is chair of the Committee on Consumer Affairs. He represents Brooklyn's 37th District, which is comprised of Cypress Hills, Bushwick, City Line, Oceanhill-Brownsville and East New York.
Rivals Agree: Restricted Ticketing is Bad Policy and a Rip-off
By Reverend Karim Camara and Gerard Kassar | 10/30/14
Revoking the right of a ticket holder to sell, donate or gift a ticket discriminates against fans with poor credit and others. Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, recently cancelled a show in New York over concerns about the
secondary market for tickets. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
From different perspectives on the same concern, the both of us – a
political party leader and an elected public official who are usually
on opposite sides of issues and from very different parts of Brooklyn
– are writing to share our worries about a growing national trend
impacting fair access to a prominent part of our civic landscape.
The issue of restricted ticketing for sporting
events and concerts causes worries across the
political spectrum. Progressives, conservatives,
and libertarians share concerns on this, as do
advocates for communities and families
struggling financially, and those who argue for
sensible development policies. Of course, fans
care deeply about this also.
Though fans ourselves, our concerns are more
about policy. Restricted ticketing is a way for
artists, sports teams, promoters, venues, and
ticket issuers to eliminate or reduce ticket
purchasers’ rights after the intitial purchase in
order to gain greater control of profits in ticket
sales and transfers. This effort, and how it’s
done, poses significant problems.
Under a restricted ticketing scheme, when
tickets for an event are purchased, those tickets
are tied directly to the purchasers’ credit card.
Buyers must have and show that same credit
card with a photo ID to get inside the event. In
effect, these tickets become non-transferable.
For those without their own credit cards,
restricted ticketing poses an almost
insurmountable hurdle. This dramatically
impacts communities of color and immigrant
communities, which, for many complicated
reasons, are underserved by banks and credit
card companies. Taking your kids to a baseball
game, basketball game, or concert shouldn’t
depend on your access to credit or legal status.
Restricted ticketing gives ticket issuers the
power to prevent anyone from transferring a
ticket at all – including gifting tickets to
fundraisers for schools and nonprofits – a
popular and important component of
development efforts. Whether in a public
school PTA fundraiser, independent school
auction, Catholic school benefit, or yeshiva
dinner – all of our children in all of our schools
depend on gifted tickets as a regular part of
supplementing and enhancing school funding.
The construction of stadiums, convention
centers, and event venues are almost always
heavily subsidized with taxpayer dollars. It is
grossly inappropriate for them to then turn
away from our communities and schools in
pursuit of greater profits on tickets that have
already been sold once. Real life always comes
up. In the event that a ticket holder’s plans
change, a last-minute project at work comes
up, or the kids are sick at home – or for
whatever reason they are unable to make the
game or concert – the ticket holder would be
forced to eat the full cost of that purchase
because, under restricted ticketing, these
tickets are non-transferable and cannot be
sold, donated, or even given away.
The ideological and legal underpinning of
restricted ticketing is also faulty. Venues and
teams and performers in support of restricted
ticketing insist that a ticket provides nothing
more than temporary revocable permission to
be at a certain place at a certain time on a
certain day and nothing more. This runs
counter to the common-sense property right a
person has in their ticket as a tangible and
transferable thing. The intellectual gymnastics
required to justify the argument that ticket
holders have no rights invested in their
purchase simply don’t hold up.
Recent publicity on this very issue generated
when Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens,
cancelled a scheduled New York show, over the
price of tickets to his concert on the secondary
market, writing on his website that “My fans will
understand and I thank them for informing me
about the extortionate tickets prices already
being listed on some websites.” Mr. Islam has
announced a replacement date “miles from
nowhere” in Philadelphia, specifically citing
New York’s law requiring the issuance of paper
tickets in his cancellation.
Similar concerns, voiced by artists such as Tom
Waits and Metallica, miss the point. While
apprehension over fan access to concerts and
sporting events is well-founded and
appropriate, the answer is not restricted
ticketing. Restricted ticketing discriminates,
and is a form of government-sponsored
corporate protection for venue developers and
owners who already enjoy subsidies.
Mr. Islam’s 40-year campaign against concert
profiteering, this time, identified the wrong
culprit.
Reverend Karim Camara is a Democratic
Assemblyman (Brooklyn), and Chairman
of the New York State Black, Hispanic, and
Asian Legislative Caucus. Gerard Kassar is
the Vice-Chairman of the New York State
Conservative Party.
Albert A. Foer, a lawyer formerly with the Federal Trade Commission,
is president of the American Antitrust Institute.Who Owns My Ticket?
By ALBERT A. FOER | JAN. 19, 2012
Washington
AT this moment, all over the United States,
consumers are buying tickets to games, concerts and
other live events under the impression that they
have the right to give away, donate or resell the
tickets they purchase. They assume that they can do
so whenever and with whomever they wish and (as
long as they don’t violate the few remaining laws
against scalping) at whatever price they choose. But
those consumers may be mistaken. In recent years
ticket sellers, along with promoters, producers,
artists and sports teams, have increasingly taken a
new approach to selling tickets. This approach,
marketed in the name of innovation, convenience
and protecting purchasers, restricts those
fundamental freedoms long rightly taken for
granted.
The practice is so-called paperless ticketing: tickets
are purchased by credit card, and to gain entry to an
event, the buyer must present the same credit card
and a photo ID. You cannot readily give your
paperless concert ticket to a friend or sell it to a
colleague or buy one for your grandchild to use. In no
other format — traditional paper ticket, printable e-
ticket or digital ticket delivered on a smartphone —
are live-event tickets subject to such transfer
restraints, and no product other than airline tickets
(for which there is a security rationale) involves such
restrictions.
Ticketmaster, the dominant seller of live-event
tickets, and to a lesser extent its much smaller
competitor Veritix, both engage in this practice.
Ticketmaster says its restrictions on the resale and
“gifting” of its paperless tickets act as safeguards
against various practices: scalping; the bulk
purchasing of tickets by automated software bots;
and the use of counterfeit, stolen or lost tickets. But
in reality, the restrictions represent an effort to
control the secondary-ticketing market and stifle
competition from independent resellers and resale
marketplaces like StubHub, where tickets are often
sold for less than face value. (The American Antitrust
Institute, of which I am president, received a modest
contribution, in the form of sponsorship of a
conference last year, from an advocacy group
financed in part by StubHub.) Paperless tickets
bought through Ticketmaster may be resold, for
example, only through its own resale Web site, which
often prohibits sales below face value, sets
maximum sale prices and charges a fee for transfers.
The scope of the problem — how many fans are
affected, how much money is involved — is difficult
to quantify. Paperless tickets are estimated to
represent only about 1 percent of the well over 100
million live-event tickets sold each year. But in the
absence of strong consumer resistance, they are
likely to become increasingly common.
This week, the American Antitrust Institute is
releasing a report on the paperless-ticket market by
James D. Hurwitz, an institute fellow and former
policy analyst at the Federal Trade Commission. The
conclusion: restrictive paperless-ticket practices
depart from bedrock market principles by
unjustifiably limiting consumer choice and
suppressing free competition. They also might
violate federal and state antitrust and consumer-
protection laws. And they may warrant legislation to
protect the market and consumers.
As it happens, a number of states are weighing ticket
reforms. In 2010, New York became the first state to
pass legislation to protect the right of consumers to
transfer tickets to others as they see fit. Similar
legislation has been introduced in Minnesota,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, Florida
and New Jersey.
We urge reform of these ticketing practices.
Specifically, we call on the Federal Trade
Commission, along with state attorneys general,
consumer-protection agencies and legislators, to
investigate the growing threat of restrictive
paperless-ticketing practices for live events. Perhaps
the threat of an investigation will spur the industry to
reform itself. These practices undermine a free, fair,
informed and competitive market. Consumers
should be enabled to transact with others.
Level the playing field on sports, entertainment tickets
By DAVID WEPRIN | 05/27/13
Sports and entertainment are a multibillion dollar industry in New York. But the consumer rights of the fans who support that business are too often violated. The culprits include teams, entertainers, promoters and even tax-supported venues.
We just renewed the 2007 state law that bans paperless-only events, unless the event also offers a transferrable paper ticket to protect fans' rights to control the tickets they bought.
Still, consumers and taxpayers alike need more protection. State Sen. James Sanders, D-Queens, and I have introduced a bill to end a "temporary" property tax exemption that Madison Square Garden's owners have exploited. Their $16 million annual tax break has deprived New Yorkers of more than $350 million over 31 years. That money that should have supported communities.
Garden owners profit from a system that denies fans a transparent, open market for tickets. Whether it's Yankee Stadium or a concert hall, we need to level the playing field.
A transparency bill introduced by Assemblyman Charles Lavine, D-Nassau County, would require online posting of how many tickets are available when they go on sale, and how many are held back before fans get a chance to buy them.
The state law to cover will-call only events, where you use the purchasing credit card for entry, needs to be extended, too. Since there is no ticket, promoters argue this is legal, but it clearly violates the law's spirit.
I have also proposed a measure to restrict taxpayer-subsidized facilities from pocketing fees on top of the face value of tickets.
Consumers have a right to buy and control tickets bought with our own money, including transferring them on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis.
David Weprin is a Democratic Assemblyman from Queens.
www.nyfanfairness.com
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when gifting or selling your tickets, please share with us!
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