Illinois just nuked the shady side of concert ticket buying in one clean sweep. Governor JB Pritzker signed three bills inside Chicago's Concord Music Hall, wiping out scalper bots, ghost resales of tickets nobody has in hand, and junk fees buried until checkout.
One law blocks bots from grabbing seats past the limit, and another makes sellers bake service and facility fees into the sticker price up front. The bot and fee rules roll out down the road, while the ghost-ticket ban is already live.
Live Nation Entertainment threw its support behind the crackdown, praising the state for targeting speculative ticket listings and shady seller sites.
State Representative Nabeela Syed, who pushed the anti-bot bill, said independent venues take a real financial hit, missing gate money and food sales, whenever scalpers clean out a show.
This all comes as a federal jury just ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster ran a ticketing monopoly, tacking on $1.72 extra per ticket sold.
One law blocks bots from grabbing seats past the limit, and another makes sellers bake service and facility fees into the sticker price up front. The bot and fee rules roll out down the road, while the ghost-ticket ban is already live.
Live Nation Entertainment threw its support behind the crackdown, praising the state for targeting speculative ticket listings and shady seller sites.
State Representative Nabeela Syed, who pushed the anti-bot bill, said independent venues take a real financial hit, missing gate money and food sales, whenever scalpers clean out a show.
This all comes as a federal jury just ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster ran a ticketing monopoly, tacking on $1.72 extra per ticket sold.
