Supporting Texans rights to a free market in the ticket industry
Texas Ticket Sellers Association
We are an association of Texas businesses committed to making sure fans in Texas have access to tickets to their favorite events. We are champions for free markets and robust competition so that fans in Texas have choices when buying tickets. Texas needs to be the place where the fans come first and where every Texan is able to buy and sell tickets to their favorite events.
Our Mission
Protect Ticket Buyers
We believe everyone in Texas should be able to purchase tickets to their favorite live events. They should be able to buy tickets without onerous restrictions or sacrificing their personal information upfront. Further that once you buy a ticket, it is your ticket to use, sell, or giveaway without restrictions. Ticketholders should not be restricted on which ticket platform they buy, sell, or transfer tickets.
Promote Free Markets
Free markets offers fans choice in buying tickets and robust competition impacts the the price they pay. Large corporations cannot be allowed to control ticketing in this state. They should not be allowed to take away tickets from sellers, resellers, and season ticket holders to centralize control of all tickets with their preferred reseller. They should not be allowed to monopolize ticket inventory in order to charge higher prices and eliminate cheap tickets by setting price floors.
Protect Local Businesses
Big California corporations are trying to eliminate competition from homegrown Texas businesses who have been serving tickets buyers in this state for decades. Those corporations hide their agenda by funding small venue associations to do their bidding. When they eliminate local businesses fans in Texas cannot access tickets for certain events and will pay higher ticket prices on others. Fans also lose the personal service they get from the small, Texas-based ticket businesses.
Goals
Allow for open transfer of tickets
Ticketmaster & others should not be allowed to abuse their dominate market position by restricting ticket transfers to only their platform. Texas should be an open transfer state which means the purchaser of the ticket can use any platform they choose to sell or transfer their tickets. Price caps and price floors should never be allowed. Texans who buy tickets should have a choice as to where they sell their tickets.
Increase protections for ticket owners
Promoters, artists, teams, and venues should not be allowed to endorse ticket resale while also systematically taking away tickets from ticket holders who resell tickets. Doing so allows them to control all inventory on the market, which lets them set higher prices because they are now reselling the tickets they took back without competition. Fans in Texas should be allowed to benefit from robust competition in the ticket industry. That competition creates downward pressure on prices for sellers, which benefits buyers.
Force Ticketmaster to act on bots
Texas state law and Federal law prohibits the use of bots. Ticketmaster continues to blame bots for their failures at delivering ticket on-sales. Ticketmaster should be required to disclose to Texas authorities their information on bots, so that bad actors can be prosecuted for using bots to buy tickets.
Increase transparency in the ticket industry
Ticket sellers operating in Texas should be required to show the “all in” ticket price which includes fees. Primary ticket sellers should be required to publish the “face value” price of tickets prior to putting tickets on-sale. Buyers in Texas should know upfront the price they are paying for tickets.
“Live Nation-Ticketmaster is probably one of the best examples of a modern-day monopoly that blankets the live entertainment supply chain.”
Get in Touch
We cannot let the big money corporations involved in tickets to drown out the smaller voices in the industry including Texas businesses and fans. Share with us your ideas and experiences in buying or selling tickets.