Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the White House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. Again, it's Thursday, 01/29/2026 at 11:05 in the morning. So we're back from a short break that we took after our hearing with House Education completed. So now we're back to look at an amendment to h five twelve. We have our legislative council with us, Cameron Wood. Cameron, you'd like to walk us through the changes?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Absolutely. Good morning. For the record, Office of Legislative Council, Cameron Wood. I'm gonna share my screen and walk through a strike all amendment for H512, an act relating to the regulation of the event ticketing market. That zoomed in enough? Everybody Okay? Okay. So this is going to be a new subchapter that would go in 9VSA Chapter 63, a chapter that's related And to consumer I put this in as a subchapter 2B. Currently, there's a subchapter 2A related to musical performances. And this language didn't really fit within that subchapter, so I'm creating a new one right under it so they're at least closely together in the statute itself. And what this would be is a new subchapter titled Event Tickets. And we have one section titled The Resale of Event Tickets. Sub A, we have a few definitions here resale, reseller, secondary ticket, speculative ticket, next page ticket, and ticket issuer. Resale is a second or subsequent sale of a ticket by any method, including in person, telephone, mail, email, other electronic means, etcetera. Reseller is a person engaged in the resale of tickets. Secondary ticket exchange means an electronic marketplace enabling the sale, purchase, and resale of tickets. One that I want to hone in on is speculative ticket. There's going to be a prohibition later on selling speculative tickets. So I think that's one of the key definitions in the section, not that they're all important. Speculative ticket means a ticket not in the actual or constructive possession of the reseller at the time of listing, sale, or advertisement.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: This includes tickets not owned by the reseller or under contract to be transferred to the reseller at the time of sale. Possession

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're going move to the next page.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yes, ma'am. It's like a will call ticket. Is that considered in your possession?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Me think about this. This is all new space to me. If it's a will call so this is going to be addressing resellers. So what I would think of a will call ticket would be the event itself, having sold the ticket, you're picking it up at will call. So that would not fall under this if it's coming from the event itself or the artist itself or the venue itself, etcetera. So Okay. Top of page two, ticket means any form of physical, electronic, or other evidence that grants the possessor of the evidence license to enter the place of entertainment for one or more events at a specified date and time. Then a ticket issuer is a person or entity that issues tickets for initial sale, including musicians, venues, promoters, theater companies, etcetera. Okay. So now we get into the meat of the section. Sub b, we have a price cap. So a ticket reseller or a ticket issuer shall not charge more than 110% of the total price of an original ticket, which includes taxes and fees for the service of providing a marketplace for the resale of a ticket. So you're essentially putting a 10% markup cap on ticket resales. Keep going. Feel free to jump in if you have any questions. Sub C is described a ban on deceptive URLs and improper use of intellectual property. So this prohibits a secondary ticket exchange, a reseller, or an operator of any website purporting to sell or offer for sale event tickets that links or redirects to a secondary ticket exchange. Two, this is a sub one. So these people, these entities, these websites, etcetera, cannot use an artist's name, a venue name, an event organizer name, graphic marketing logo, an image, or any other intellectual property of those entities artists, venues, event organizers including proprietary resemblance of the venue where the event shall occur, and any promotional materials, social media promotions, or URLs of the secondary ticket exchange reseller or website without prior authorization from the respective individual or entity. And then moving into the top of three, secondary ticket exchange, website, individual reseller, etcetera, cannot state or imply that a secondary ticket exchange, reseller, website is affiliated with or endorsed by a venue team or artist, including by using the words official in their promotional materials, social media promotions, etcetera, etcetera. So you can't use their names. You can't use their logos. And then you can't try to articulate that you are somehow affiliated with those artists, venues, etcetera, saying that you are an official site. I'm an official site of x theater, something to that effect, without having authorization or an agreement in place that authorizes you to do so. Subsection D, we're on lines nine and ten here. This is what I mentioned at the beginning, prohibition on specular ticket sales. A reseller shall not sell or offer for sale specular tickets. And again, that's defined as tickets that are not in your physical or constructive possession. And then we have registration requirements in subsection E. An individual or entity that resells more than 99 tickets per year, so this is going be 100 or more, Above the ticket's original value, shall register annually with the Vermont Secretary of State as an event ticket reseller. There's a carve out here to say that if the resale is part of a season ticket package for a sports team where the buyer purchases tickets of half or more of all home games, so you're getting a package of tickets to a sports team, that doesn't count to the threshold of 100 or more. And I'll just highlight the language. Says it doesn't count period. So it doesn't even count as one. It's a total carve out situation. Individuals or entities under common ownership will be treated as a single reseller for purposes of registration. Moving to the top of page four, the information that has to be provided in the registration includes the full legal name, aliases, usernames, contact information, applicable employer identification information, associated entities or subsidiaries involved, and any other information required by the Secretary of State? Yes, sir? Because they're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: an online business, but they are providing their business to Vermonters. Are they already required to register with the Secretary of State's office?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good question. I do not know the answer off the top of my head. It's something I'd defer to Rick or the Secretary of State. Fortunately, was just speaking to Mr. Hall in hallway, but I did not think to ask. Happy to get that happy to things. Sub four, secretary of state may charge a registration fee to cover this cost of registration and compliance with this subsection. A few key things I just wanted to point out with this language. There's not a set fee. So the Secretary of State's office would set the fee. And I also, with the language, it's worded to say to cover the cost of the registration and compliance with this subsection, the subsection being registration. So it's not compliance with the section as a whole, which as you'll see in a second, it's in consumer protection. Is really enforcement is with the attorney general's office, or in some instances, the state's attorney. But just wanted to clarify there so you're all aware, the fee wouldn't be covering compliance of the section as a whole. It's just compliance with the registration. That may be something you wanna hear from the secretary of state's office or the attorney general's office on those pieces. Sure.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We'll hear from briefs and memes too.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I like that. Sub five, a registered event ticket reseller that sells over a thousand tickets, so 1,001 or more, shall maintain a surety bond of not less than $10,000 to ensure compensation to consumers in cases where the reseller fails to deliver purchase tickets or engage in fraudulent activities. Another thing I'll highlight with this, I'm not sure that this is really necessary. What I mean by that is I've seen other language that's been introduced in other states that has a lot of this with other aspects. And some other states that have laws and some of the proposed legislation I've seen, they require resellers to reimburse individuals if the tickets are fraudulent, if the event is canceled, etcetera. And so what I've seen in those states is they say, hey, you must put up a surety bond to ensure that in the event that you need to pay customers back because tickets are fraudulent for whatever reason, we have access to those funds to ensure repayment. In this amendment, you don't have similar provisions. So when it says that the surety bond is there to ensure compensation to consumers in cases where the reseller fails to deliver the purchase tickets, there's actually no section in here that mandates that they do that. So I'm just highlighting for you all that that may be something you want to discuss or potentially remove the section or just get an understanding of what's the reasoning behind having a surety bond if there's no actual requirements of repayment from a reseller. You could redraft it to say the surety bond is there in case there's some enforcement needed from the attorney general's office related to I mean, it does say fraudulent activity. So if you have a reseller engaging in fraudulent activity, the AG may support this. I don't know that it exists in other circumstances similar to this, but you may wanna ask the attorney general's office or others if there's some tweaking that needs to be done to that to that language. Perfect. So yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: I I think I think I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: get your

[Unidentified committee member]: point. And maybe the link has to be explicit, but the remedies under Consumer Protection Act twenty four fifty three, think it has a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: restitution component in it.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yes.

[Unidentified committee member]: So but maybe I I think you're talking about making the explicit, the link between bond and those remedies.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If that's what you want the bond for, yes, sir. Yep. Because right now, it will be that section that's tied to compensation back to consumers in cases where the reseller failed to deliver. So unless that is somehow tied into a settlement between the attorney general enforcing against a reseller in this instance, then F, violations, a person who violates commits an unfair and deceptive act. And violation of Section two thousand four and fifty three, standard language we put in the consumer protection sections, triggers in all of the enforcement from the attorney general's office. And then section two here, it's the Vermont Arts Council, in collaboration with the Vermont Secretary of State and the Vermont Attorney General, shall undertake a consumer education campaign to inform Vermont consumers of the requirements of this section, utilizing funds collected through the registration required by 9 BSA 2479. So the registration, whatever that fee is, some of those fees could be used by the Vermont Arts Council to do this campaign, Whether you want the Vermont Arts Council to be the lead or Secretary of State or AG, you can switch those around. And then it takes effect I put this out to 07/01/2027 just to give individuals and entities awareness of the registration requirements. I assume the Secretary of State's office would want some time to be able to set that up, etcetera, etcetera. So you can change that date if you're inclined to, but that's just I use that as a starting point. Feel free to put that where you all would like. And that's the amendment. Questions? I'm just thinking about this 110% cap. Is that enough?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: And I'm thinking if you're if you're paying 30 to you know, the the cost of the ticket, like, if you buy it direct, it's $30. That's $3 a ticket. And don't it's not something I would want to get in the business with because I just don't see how I can make money on it. So I have a little I have some concerns about the 110% cap. The other thing is I feel like one of the things I had mentioned is that resellers of these tickets should have to conspicuously display who they are, so that people very clearly know and understand they're not getting tickets from the Berry Opera House. They're not getting tickets from the flick. And I don't see a

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: lot of language in there. So those are my two things. In response to the first question, I would not be one to answer that whether a 10% markup, if you will, would be sufficient. It's language that I've seen in other iterations of similar types of bills in other states. So I'm not sure if that's something that the market has determined is sufficient, but that would be a question for others, for me to answer. I will say, going back to the the second piece, you do have the prohibitions here under subsea. So it does prohibit these entities moving forward, a reseller, a secondary marketplace website, etcetera, from trying to make those connections, deeming themselves official, using the names of Berry Opera House, just for the example that you gave there. It would prohibit them from doing that moving forward unless they have authorization authorization to to do do so. So. So I do think the second question you had would be covered by the subsection C. As far as the first question goes, that would be something better for others to answer.

[Unidentified committee member]: Only one of these, think, depend on vendors could charge, let's say it's $30 and they do charge 33, is that correct? Be 10% cap. $33, they could tack on an insurance cost, correct, to get them over that amount. I'm not opposed to that because it's very clear you're paying for the insurance

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: insurance charge that would be optional for an individual. I don't see the statutory language, if this were to pass in this form, prohibiting them from doing that. But they wouldn't be able to include it in the price of the ticket itself. I mean, the sub B says, you shall not charge more than 110% of the total price of the original ticket. You could add language if you wanted to. It says, including taxes and fees for this service. You could add something in there that says, any other costs associated just to make sure or clarify. But the way I read this is the ticket itself is gonna be capped at a 110%, period. If you wanted to offer some sort of additional service on top of that that was an optional charge to an individual, I don't see this section prohibiting you from that. You wouldn't be able to make it mandatory. I don't have a problem with insurance,

[Unidentified committee member]: paying for the insurance, that's on that. I just want to make sure that it's clear that people are looking at this. The ticket costs this, but you're paying this much in insurance. And what you're saying is that this does cover that. I don't know if we want to make it more clear. Think of airline tickets. We purchase them, they come on the screen, 200. The next thing you know, you're paying $250 because of all, I haven't purchased airline tickets for almost twenty years. So if that's not how it works now, I apologize. But it's the same thing with cell phone services. Dollars 40 for a line, and next thing you know, you're paying $55 And I just want to make sure that I don't have a problem with the 110% cap, but they need to make sure that it's $50 which also includes insurance, but they're not realizing that that insurance is like $20 or sorry, like $15

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: or whatever.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, again, would just say the way I'm reading this is the entity, the reseller, would not be able to charge more than 110% regardless of what that charge is for. So they wouldn't be able to cap on some sort of additional insurance charge after the 110%. What they could do is they could offer that. But I would see it as the individual would have to opt in to that purchase based on the language on the screen here. And then you're probably incorporating a lot of other statutory law about insurance, what they can be offered for, etcetera, etcetera. But for purposes here, I guess what I'm trying to answer your question is, this statutory language, plain language reading of it as I read it, would not allow a reseller to add on additional charges on top of the 110%, regardless of what they try to call it. If they wanted to offer that to people as an opt in purchase, I don't see anything prohibiting them from doing it. But they wouldn't be able to make it. We'd like to put language in there. Let's hear more Kevin or here. We can explore that a little bit more with that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We did a bands.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, my apologies. Sorry. I just see it on my screen. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But I know Jonathan Jonathan has his hand up. Going back to Tony's one of Tony's points, that can could we require that the ticket resellers, when they're posting on the Internet, that they have to what Tony was saying, make them conspicuously say that they are a ticket reseller?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Off the top of my head, I don't see anything that would prohibit you from doing so. I probably want to think about it a little more. But if you wanted to say let me think about it a

[Unidentified committee member]: little bit. I'm just trying to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think because the language and the definition pretty broad. So a ticket reseller is anyone selling a resale of a ticket, which is a secondary or subsequent sale. So you're talking about even individuals who I'm just selling to you. And so I'd want to be clear about potentially articulate some sort of disclosure like that. But what you could, I think, is there's the definition of the secondary ticket exchange in an electronic marketplace. So you could potentially I could see having some sort of disclosure on a secondary ticket exchange saying this is a market for the resale of tickets or something to that effect. If you're selling on Facebook market, you pretty much know. But if if you're looking up, say, the Flynn, and all of a sudden you've got all of these other sites that are coming up that is not Flynn, how do we and I know with the language they can't report to be the Flin or the artist or whatever, but just wondering if in those instances we could say something. So we'll let

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: you explore that. I mean, there's precedent like in real estate. I'm a real estate agent, and it's very clearly stated we need to conspicuously tell people who our brokerage firm is. So I was thinking there's already some precedent to work with.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Jonathan?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Hi. I'm sorry. Managing some difficulties here. So my question is this. In c one, I know it can't mean this, but as I read it, how is anyone able to use the name it seems like it's it's prohibiting people from using the name of the artist and the event. So I'm just without the consent of the artist and the venue. So how could a reseller even say that they have a ticket for sale? C one is just kind of confusing to me. If you would would you mind explaining that a little bit more me?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I understand your question. Let me articulate it back to you and you tell me if I'm thinking about this in the right context. If I'm a ticket reseller and I'm selling a ticket for a specific artist at a specific venue and I'm listing it to say, you're going to see Cameron Wood at the Berry Opera House. Am I violating section C1 by doing that? And I would say it says, can't use the artist name, the venue name, event organizer name, graphic marketing logo image, or other intellectual property of the artist venue or event organizer, including any proprietary resemblance of the venue where an event shall occur in promotional materials, social media promotions, or URLs of the secondary ticket exchange, reseller, or website. So not to put the attorney general's office on the spot, it may be a question best posed to them who would be enforcing it. As I can see it, if it's not a promotional material, social media promotion, the URL, then I don't see an issue with it. So by simply listing the ticket of who the artist is or identifying the venue location of the ticket that you're purchasing, I don't, on its face, see that as violating this as long as you're not out there promoting it. But it may be worth cleaning up to specify that a reseller can provide some sort of basic level of information without violating that section.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Yes. That's I think that's exactly where I was going with it, Cameron. Are all advertisements necessarily promotional materials? Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any questions for Camel? Thanks, Camel. Yep. You're welcome.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's my first time in here this year,

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: so it's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: always a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: pleasure. Yes, of course.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Morning, everyone. Thanks for having us to talk about this. I'm Susan Evans McClure. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. I know you all heard from me last week, so I will spare you my embarrassing stories again and just address a few of the things that came up in the bill here, starting with the 10% price cap. So I'll just talk through kind of our intent with that, and then I will defer to the experts on how that language should be in the bill. But the intent with that, you know, for I've heard the phrase public math used in the state house several times this year already. But, you know, so you're buying a $20 ticket. Maybe that ticket has $5 you buy a ticket from their let's go with their upper house. A lovely spot. You buy a $20 ticket. That ticket has $5 in tax and fees. So you have paid $25 for that ticket. If that ticket is gonna be resold, it's 10% on top of that total. So then you sell your ticket for 25 plus 10%, $27.50, I think. And then that's the cost of the ticket. A question I mean, and then there are probably gonna be fees on top of that with a platform, I would assume. That's how credit cards work in the world we live in. But that's the intent with the 10% is that we wanna be disincentivizing people to artificially mark up these tickets at exorbitant rates to make money off of them when the venues and the artists are not the ones making that money. And when it comes to the venues setting the rate of that ticket, the venues really understand the consumers. They understand their market and they do set market rates for things. Not every ticket at the Berry Opera House is the exact same cost. Not every ticket at the Flynn or the Paramount, right? That really changes based on who's playing the market demand for that. And that's something that the venues understand. So they set that ticket based on market rate, and that's that's free market capitalism. Right? We support that. That should be different. And that's the rate that we should be basing this on. We've also heard from our colleagues in Maine who have already passed a bill with a ticket cap, and they let us know that almost immediately after passage, they noticed a sharp decrease in this fraudulent online activity. And really, when you put the 10% cap on there, it's just taken away the reason resell those tickets here. People can't make the exorbitant sums of money off of it, which just doesn't seem fair. Those people making that money are not the artists, they're not the venue, they're not the sports leagues. That idea of a conspicuous disclosure, that's a great idea. Thank you for bringing that up. There are other states that have added something like that and about conspicuous disclosure. So again, would defer to the legal experts here on how that works. There may be an opportunity as I think they're done in other sectors in the state to have required similar to real estate standard disclosure language as part of the registry potentially, and that's something that we could standardize and then have that be required. I think that would be really helpful from the consumer perspective too. And it would be something when you come to a venue with a complaint, they could say, did you see on the what website did you buy it from? Did they say this is what's on there? The last time I was here, you asked about if any legal action had been taken in other states after this legislation had passed. And I've checked with some national colleagues, the answer across the board is no. When states pass these regulations, they they meet all muster is what kind of I've been told. And since was I here last week? Two weeks ago? What was I saying about time? A couple weeks ago. Since then, we've been able to talk to some sports organizations in our states. Many of you may be Vermont Green FC fans out there or Lake Monster supporters. They have both been enthusiastic about this bill as well. And I think having their support is a reminder to us that this is good legislation. When you pass something that's good for one group and it happens to work for other people, that's an example of this being really good for everyone, which is what we're trying to do. I've also heard some pretty amazing stories from Vermont organizations who were just trying to make it right. The Lake Munsters actually told me that the Lake Munsters tickets are like $12, think, maybe $6 for standing room. And routinely, they'll have someone come in who's paid $50 for a ticket, and they'll come up and it's a fake ticket they've paid $50 for. And the general manager said he'll just come down and say, I'm so sorry this happened to you. Let me give you the best seat we possibly have available tonight just because he wants them to have a good time. And you hear that from the performing arts venues, from sports organizations, and it speaks kind of to the wonderfulness about Vermont is that people are trying to make this right for fans and consumers, but it's also not something they should have to do. It shouldn't be part of your business model to make up for this. Know, these are really basic regulations and any industry that is seemingly does not want these basic regulations, that feels like a red flag to me about their business practices. And what we're trying to do is just have some fairness across the board here. I'm happy to take other questions too if folks have questions.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I'm just wondering, you mentioned you talk with our fellows in Maine. Did you hear anything about lower attendance in some of these venues? I mean, my concern is, and maybe it's crazy, is without having all these other companies advertising the tickets that there's lower participation, did you see anything?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: No. That's not that has not been the case any state in the country that's passed this legislation. Okay. What is happening is the people who are already interested in buying the ticket are the ones who are being directed to these fraudulent webs to these sometimes fraudulent websites, sometimes websites that are increasing prices. So kind of taking that away directs people directly to the venue. And there isn't in no way and any if anything, I would say there's probably an if you take away this problem, more people are gonna come out and buy tickets because you're you're making it less risky for them to do so, which is what we want too. We want even more fans attending performances and sports events in Vermont too. Anything

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: else for Susan? Thank you, Susan. Okay. Thank you. You can add a new Thank you.

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: Again, thank you for having me back, Susan and I, and I wanna thank Susan for all the work she's done for all of the state on this. I will echo, Tony, your your note earlier about note noting they're a resale site. There is requirements in certain states for noting they're a resale site. And if you still have my presentation from last time I was here, you'll see that one of those resale sites has it in a font size of about eight at the top right of their page. So I think any language that goes in has to be very clearly defined as what that means prominently displayed, we deal with artists all the time, and they'll say, Our building has to be 50% of can't be, smaller than 50% of the largest font type of thing. So, are opportunities for that. Some sites do define themselves as that vivid, for instance, as one I was looking at this morning that doesn't. So I think it has to be prominent in the advertising. I think what needs to be in there, whether it's on Google search, social media, that would be a very important issue. And they shouldn't hide the fact of what they're doing. If it's a legitimate business, they should welcome that, so let the consumers know. All pages after. The other thing I have a question about is what is considered deceptive? I mean, how gray area is deceptive advertising? So this morning, for instance, like, I went to Vivid, just tried out Vivid for a benefit we're doing for the immigrant community called All the Rivers. So we're doing this benefit show for the Burlington immigrant community. They have tickets for sale on the site. They the actual when I first Googled it, it came up and it said tickets starting from 38.46, and I can provide documentation on this. When I clicked on the site, the lowest ticket price that was 96. Is that deceptive? I mean, to me, it it came across as deceptive. And then even further, after I looked through it and then I was clicking off, a pop up comes up and says, tickets are selling fast. Hurry up to guarantee your seats. We have sold 400 tickets out of 1,300. Is that deceptive? See, so that's my question as a venue who loses from this. And to the point of the price markup, have people seen decreases in selling? We certainly haven't, and I don't think we would because one of, I think, the biggest problems we have in fighting these sites is the amount of money they are able to spend marketing that we cannot meet, that patrons go to them thinking they're looking at the Flint's ticket prices. They walk away when they see these extremely high markups. A 10% markup, likely less so, that should benefit us. My last point, and I know I am shooting for the sky here, so I appreciate your understanding for this. But one of the issues that comes up, I mentioned when I was here before, credit card resell, right? Credit card fraud. So, these individuals that I want to identify what resells is, right? The individual buys a ticket and puts them on a resale site. So, we actually have two resellers, right? They will buy those. Some unscrupulous people will buy those off credit cards they buy in the dark web they use. It doesn't show up on that person's credit card until after the show has closed, and we are out a significant amount of money. We have no way to recoup that. We don't know, for instance, who that individual who used a fraudulent credit card, what site he used to sell his tickets. So my request would be when a, ticket site resells tickets, they notify the venue before the performance of a list of their consumers who purchased these tickets, because we also run into problems. I mentioned before Sound of Music. Right? Sound of Music had it out that was at Trap Lodge two summers ago. Had it out marketed as the musical Sound of Music at the Flynn. It wasn't. It was a great concert, and it was at Trapp Family Lodge. Notifying those sites didn't change anything. It didn't get them to change how they were marketing it. So having a list like that also, for instance, I had to have staff at the Flynn on those nights to make sure anyone who bought a ticket thinking that was at the Flynn that we could direct them to trap lodge. That's an additional cost for us making up for their deceptive work. They don't I don't even say they're deceptive. They're going what the seller is telling them, the person providing the tickets. The other issue if a show is delayed, we have a texting system. We've had a lot of parking and construction issues. As Susan noted, we all are working to do the best for our consumers, our patrons. And so if we have a late start to a show, we text people and let them know. If there's going to be a major downtown issue, we'd notify them by email and text. If these sites were able to send us a listing of those who purchased tickets, we could notify them. When a show is can we've actually had people show up, bought tickets to a resale site. We had the concert postponed. We notify everyone that purchased tickets. We give them a window for refund. When resellers get those messages, we've seen too many times patrons showing up on the original night with these tickets. And then, of course, they're not mad at anybody other than

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: Flynn. So having the ability to have contact with the end user would provide us and them with a much better experience. Yeah, that's really all I had. Has any questions?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: May I ask one?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Go ahead, John.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Thanks. Mr. Sweeney, I was actually thinking of this, that exact scenario, and I'm wondering, one of the knock on effects then would be that you're able to retain the contact information of those patrons for subsequent communications that can come directly from the Flynn to that potential customer. Is that right?

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: That would be something that we could negotiate on. But yes, if we were to have the opportunity, we would.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Almost seemed like easier if the reseller was required to have disclosure that please contact if it's something performance at the flint, please contact the flint twenty four or forty eight hours before the performance to make sure that

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That could work as well.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You know, something that resellers would do and it doesn't, the owners isn't on anybody else, but not on you to try to contact now this new owner. Save you, save the venue's time and administrative costs. And then the illness is on the person purchasing the resale ticket.

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: I'm just curious if my question about deceptive is do any of

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think we're gonna hear from the attorney general's office. They've been working unfair and deceptive business practices for a long time.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm sure they have. Thank

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you. Good morning. Good morning. Okay, Doug.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: For the record, Todd Delos, assistant attorney general at the Vermont AG's office. I think I'm just gonna try and pick up the pieces that kinda got tossed my way, and then I'm happy to answer any questions folks have. So having just seen the bill, I'll need a little bit more time to digest the specific language. But, generally, we remain supportive of this, believe that it is within our core enforcement space in the consumer protection realm. To rep Cooper's question, happy to work with alleged counsel on that language in c one around use of name and venue location to try and maybe dial it in a little bit differently so that, you know, a site can still advertise without running afoul of of deception. You know, to the question around what is deceptive, there's a body of case law around it. So it's a little tricky for me to say this is this isn't. But in a given circumstances, what does a reasonable consumer assume that the representation means? And we operate, you know, that's what the marketplace is supposed to allow for. That doesn't mean that folks can't use various practices to encourage sales. The amount of I I am not as clear on sort of that urgency, the creation of urgency. We're selling out fast and where that lies, but I think it's it's usually the totality of what's going on in the advertising really focuses on deceptive, which also means that, you know, one phrase doesn't clean up the entire an entirely deceptive advertising effort, but we look more broadly than that. You know, to the point about rep Boutin's point about, you know, clear and conspicuous disclosure, I think there's absolutely space as it exists in other places for that, and we support more consumer education. I mean, we continue to believe that's the first and foremost, but work on this is inform consumers, understanding the marketplace, and making informed choices, ideally going to the venues and and the performers and and the folks who are really creating the the performances that we're interested in seeing. That's why the education campaign is in there. We support that, and we recognize that regulation is still really important in the space. So I'm happy to answer other questions that I think that was the list I jot down.

[Unidentified committee member]: I could see that for a positive notification where there is a reseller or someone acting as an official agent. For example, supermarket chain may partner with the Lake Monsters. They may actually sell tickets or do something like that. And, their advertising were similar thing. There should be, in light of the skepticism, some sort of a positive statement that they are an official proof partner, whatever it should be. Seems to me like that would be a helpful step.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Yeah. I mean, it strikes me as, right, the official supermarket of the Boston Red Fox. That kind that's sort of what you're suggesting, but in a promotion. Yeah. I I could look in I mean, Ledge Council's gonna be better able to dig that up, but we're happy to work with it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Tom? Thank you. Yeah. Pleasure. So we need to hear from the Secretary of State's office. We have two more people. Doctor. Oh, I've got a It's good. I've got a phone call. We have Randall. Okay. Okay. We'll take him this afternoon. Ma'am. Hayden? Hayden?

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Good morning. How are you?

[Mr. Sweeney (The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts)]: Good morning,

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Anne. It is all almost afternoon, but still morning. Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So if you could just state your name for the record and continue with your testimony.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Thank you. My name is Aidan Skass, and I serve as a policy manager at Chamber of Progress. And on behalf of Chamber of Progress, a tech industry association supporting public policies to build a society in which all people benefit from technological advances. I do respectfully urge you to oppose H five twelve, which as seen in the amendment, would impose arbitrary price caps on ticket resales. These restrictions would drive transactions into underground and unregulated markets, increasing fraud risks and reducing consumer protections. Our really concerns are that price caps are arbitrary and effective. A 2018 report by the US Government Accountability Office highlighted the difficulty in enforcing these caps, making them largely unsuccessful. The report also referenced a study by the New York Department of State, which found no definitive evidence that price caps impacted the availability of tickets for resale or resulted in lower resale prices. In June 2023, the resale restrictions for Taylor Swift's Era tour, as everyone knows, Australia also highlighted how price caps drove fans to unverified websites and social media platforms, exposing them to scams and fraud. Police reports also showed that around $260,000 were lost to scams related to counterfeit tickets for just one tour. And so fans who saw these alternative channels were left without recourse when their tickets turned out to be fake, demonstrating how price caps can drive transactions into untrustworthy environments where consumer protections are essentially non existent. Chamber of Progress, of course, welcomes the opportunity to work with the committee and serve as a resource as these issues are considered. But that said, for the reasons I have outlined, we do respectfully oppose H512 and urge you not to advance the bill. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for you. So are you opposing the whole bill or just the price cap in the bill?

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Mainly the price cap in the bill, just from the conversations today. We also don't like the speculative ticketing listing requirement. Instead of a ban, we do prefer that disclosure provision that was previously included in the two page bill text so that we could support. Another issue would be the definition of ticket is considered more as a license rather than a property of the consumer. Again, we're really focused on consumers having these technological advancements, having as many rights as they can. So we see ticket as more of a property that they own rather than a license so that they're more able, they have the ability to resell.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So I'm curious how aware you are of the Vermont market and the deceptive practices that are being used in it today.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Again, I'm the policy manager. Unfortunately, our state lead who typically testifies and is more aware of the Northeast would have a little more information on the Vermont marketplace. So I'm based in Washington DC, I don't have as much insight, but of course happy to learn more, speak to our Northeast state lead and help respond with any questions there.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yeah,

[Unidentified committee member]: I was just wondering, so I was just wondering what evidence you have that a modest cap increase would increase fraud relative to kind of what's going on, especially since we are hearing that that is what is happening is that fraud is increasing.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Really just mainly research that we've seen. Again, Australia, we've seen it in Ireland, I believe The UK. I can provide the committee with actual resources of these researches. But that's where we're seeing it. I know the idea is, of course, to protect consumers, but it would one, kind of limit how they resell a ticket. So that's a consumer choice issue. But at the same time, seeing those price caps already happen and not necessarily helping consumers because realistically they are going to go to unregulated markets to get tickets, whether it's Instagram or Facebook or whatever the marketplace may be. We're seeing that it's not necessarily effective.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, it seems like the Australia example is kind of an argument for stronger regulation and verification. And I'm just, I think, going to Representative Graning's situation, I know you don't have a state lead right now, but a global stadium tour doesn't really seem like it hears that, you know, a small rural state where we our entire economy really centers, like, creative businesses and nonprofits at a higher per capita than like any other state in the country. And so I think it would be great to have here stats that are actually to our situation.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Yeah, and I should mention we do have a state lead. She's unfortunately at another hearing, but I can work with her to see if we can provide more Vermont related statistics to help with this argument. Thank

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you, great. Other questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

[Aidan Skass (Policy Manager, Chamber of Progress)]: Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So we have one more person on 05:12. He'll be after lunch. So we'll continue to hear testimony at one, and then we'll go into we'll look at h 06:39 and have more discussions with the attorney general's office on that one. So we will need to hear from David Powell with the secretary of state's office to kind of work out, are these entities already required to register as doing business in the State of Vermont? If not, then, you know, if they are, then how do we then we'll need to think about how we gather more information from them, how the Secretary of State's office can get more information and possibly talk about further fees will go to the Secretary of State's office before those duties that we're asking them to do. And we'll hear, I think, from another online seller next week as well. And so we'll keep chatting and keep putting keep massaging this build. I'm hoping we can move something next week or after possible. So any questions? Okay.

[Unidentified committee member]: Herb? About the schedule this afternoon. So legislative council had noted an additional item in terms in of housekeeping bill. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I didn't know whether you'd wanna invite her over this afternoon to have an amendment. Probably do that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: What's that? Probably do that Friday. But we might be able to do that this afternoon, though. Is Maria available this afternoon? Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. I it I'm I'm in addition. Let's Let's see. Ninety to 01:45. Why don't we ask Maria to come in at at two? And there's amendment to page six forty eight. Some cleanup that's something that we discovered, and there will be an amendment for a third reading. We won't do it today. We'll do it tomorrow. But if we can hear the amendment today and clerk can get it drafted, can shop all those and vote it. Thanks for that, Herb. So, we can go off live when you're ready, and we'll be back at one.