Kevin Chavous: DC’s win against Ticketmaster should be just the beginning, but a price cap isn’t the answer
Summer concert season is here, but the usual enthusiasm among District residents is not.
Across the country, reports have emerged of softer ticket sales. After years of rising ticket prices — concert ticket prices having surged 105% since 2000 and sports tickets up an astonishing 123% — many Americans are simply reaching their limit.
Washington-area consumers know the problem all too well.
In April, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb announced a nearly $10 million settlement with Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, after an investigation found the company — which controls at least 80% of major-venue concert ticket sales — used deceptive pricing practices and hidden fees that misled consumers.
As Schwalb put it, Ticketmaster spent years “charging predatory, hidden fees, taking advantage of DC residents buying tickets for their favorite artist or team and pricing others out entirely.”
With the settlement, the attorney general said, the District is “putting millions of dollars back into the pockets of DC fans and ensuring that the price fans see when they first start shopping for tickets is the price they actually pay.”
The settlement was an important victory for consumers. It highlighted problems most have known about for years: Ticketmaster’s dominance has left fans with fewer choices and higher costs. Until recently, consumers have routinely begun the ticket-buying process expecting to pay one price only to discover a host of mandatory fees at checkout, while countdown clocks and other pressure tactics pushed them toward purchases they might not otherwise have made.
That is why the DC Council’s ongoing debate over ticketing reform is so important.
Legislation known as the Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment (RESALE) Amendment Act of 2025 is described by proponents as a package intended to make tickets more affordable and protect consumers from abusive practices. The legislation passed a first vote on June 30 and is scheduled for final consideration on July 14.
Policymakers and the DC public should be careful of a Trojan horse provision that would strengthen the very monopoly that AG Schwalb is fighting against.
One section of the proposed legislation — removed by the Committee on Public Works and Operations, but unfortunately restored by the council at first reading — would impose limits on ticket resale prices. While that may sound appealing at first glance, critics from across the political spectrum have raised concerns that the policy could produce adverse unintended consequences for consumers.
The Bowser administration opposed the proposal, arguing in testimony that restricting the legal resale market could push more activity into unregulated channels and create new opportunities for fraud.
Others have raised a different concern: that resale price caps, which Ticketmaster has publicly advocated for in the past, could ultimately strengthen Ticketmaster itself.
Washington City Paper highlighted this issue last fall in an aptly titled article, “Consumer Protection or Ticketmaster Giveaway? D.C. Council Weighs Ticket Scalping Bill.”
As Michael Busler, a finance professor at Stockton University, noted in the article, Ticketmaster’s enormous size and vertical integration allow it to absorb costs and restrictions that many smaller competitors cannot.
In other words, a policy intended to weaken Ticketmaster could end up making it even stronger.
That is the challenge of regulating a monopolist. Large companies often possess the resources and influence to adapt to regulations in ways that smaller competitors cannot. Well-intentioned legislation can sometimes produce exactly the opposite result from what lawmakers intended.
DC should follow the lead of New York, Maryland and Delaware, all of which reviewed legislative resale cap provisions this session and rejected their adoption.
There are other aspects of the bill that address the main issues fans have, and those do deserve support.
For example, the legislation would crack down on ticket-buying bots that scoop up large quantities of tickets before ordinary fans have a chance to purchase them. Anyone who has logged on the moment tickets go on sale only to discover the best seats have already disappeared understands why this reform is needed.
Although federal law already prohibits the use of such bots, enforcement has frequently been inadequate. That’s a problem, because in a September lawsuit filed against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the Federal Trade Commission provided evidence of emails in which the monopoly admitted to turning “a blind eye as a matter of policy” when brokers evade its ticket purchase limits (perhaps because it is profitable for the business). Giving the District additional tools to combat the practice is a sensible step.
The bill would also strengthen pricing transparency requirements. Consumers should know the true cost of a ticket before beginning the checkout process, not only after they have spent time selecting seats and entering payment information. Requiring upfront disclosure of all mandatory charges would make it harder for ticket sellers to rely on the hidden-fee tactics that helped lead to Schwalb’s settlement in the first place.
The council should move forward with the commendable parts of the RESALE Act while steering clear of any inadvertent hidden giveaways that could reinforce Ticketmaster’s dominance.
If city leaders focus on transparency, competition and consumer protection, DC can become a model for how to rein in Ticketmaster and make live entertainment more affordable again.
Kevin Chavous is an attorney who serves as a National Committeeman for the Democratic National Committee representing the District of Columbia. A recent candidate for an at-large DC Council seat, he was formerly senior legal, policy and operational adviser to at-large Councilmember Anita Bonds.
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