President Joe Biden is calling for limits on concert fees and early termination charges for TV and internet, as well as restrictions on excessive penalties for late payments on credit cards and a new rule that would require airlines and other booking platforms to list upfront the full price of tickets.
Biden is using a February 1st meeting of the President’s Competition Council to lay out the agenda and pressure Congress to adopt new legislation, the Junk Fee Prevention Act, Deadline reports. As part of the push, the White House cited a study by the Government Accountability Office that looked at 31 major venues and five ticket sellers, finding that the average service charge totaled more than 20% of the face value, and could reach up to half the overall cost.
The announcement follows last week’s bipartisan hearing in which the Senate grilled Live Nation President Joe Berchtold over the Ticketmaster’s botched Taylor Swift “The Eras Tour” pre-sale. Senator Amy Klobuchar argued that Live Nation’s excessive fees are a symptom of a lack of competition in the ticketing market and calling the company the “definition of monopoly.”
In a statement,Ticketmaster wrote, “Ticketmaster strongly supports ticketing reforms that will benefit artists and fans, prevent fraud, and clean up fraudulent practices in resale markets. These basic steps should be the things everyone agrees on, including mandating all-in pricing and outlawing speculative ticketing. We stand ready to work with the President and Congress on many common sense ticketing reforms, while also speaking out against proposed legislation that would benefit scalpers over artists and fans.”
Other proposals in the Junk Fee Prevention Act include preventing airlines from charging families to sit next to their young children and capping hotel “destination fees” and “resort fees.”
The White House and Congress had previously addressed competition in internet with language in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act that required broadband providers to disclose prices, speeds, and data allowances in easy-to-understand labels. The Junk Fee Prevention Act would mark a substantial expansion of government oversight of telecom and ticket markets. While it has a clear path to clearing the Senate, its future in the House of Representatives is less certain, as the new Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, prioritizes a debt limit fight. McCarthy has called for steep spending cuts, though has refused to highlight which programs he would like to target.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with Ticketmaster’s statement.
