Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This is

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Tuesday, 02/10/2026 at 03:30 in the afternoon. So now we're back from a really short break to continue our conversations on H512, to the act relating to the regulation of the event ticketing market. I know on the agenda, it says Marcotte possible, though that won't happen today. I think there's a number of discussions that we need to have with everyone before we can get to that point. So we're getting a schedule into next week, trying to move this forward because we possibly can. Well, first, we have Cameron, do you have anything new for us?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't have anything back up for the record, Cameron Woodhoff's the legislative council. I don't have a new draft, but if you want, I can kind of review what you have and talk a little bit about some things I know have slightly changed based on the committee conversation. And then there was a question from Representative Cooper on some of the language that's there that I went and I pulled up what Maine has to address the similar issue, if you will. And I figured I would pull that up and share with you in case you wanna go in a a more higher level direction if that makes sense. Okay. Here, if you don't mind giving me access. Thank you so much.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: So this was the current draft that we've reviewed now. I think it may have been early last week or the week before. You all recall it was a board form. So this is just drafted up as a committee strike all amendment in 05/12 gives a definition of certain terms that are used. And I do have a recommendation to just kind of make sure some of these things like original ticket and initial ticket seller, etcetera, are consistent. So I will go through and do another fine tooth comb of this. Then you get to subsection b, which is a price cap on secondary ticket exchange. One recommendation that I've already received, which I agree with, is to add a comma right there on the end of fees. So this is to specify that the ticket reseller can only charge 110% of the total price of the original ticket, including the taxes and fees of the original ticket. So it's just a clarification there. And I know you all had some discussions on that. I'm happy to receive feedback if you want some new language.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So that wouldn't include the fees of the platform if they have a fee?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: It would include whatever fees are associated with the sale of the original ticket, presumably from the venue that initially sold them. So whatever interest they have charged and whatever fees that entity has charged for the original ticket, the ticket reseller could use that total bottom line price to base the 110% off of.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But then so the platform that's the tickets being sold could then charge the ticket seller a fee to sell that ticket. Is that correct?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: It would only be they would be capped at 10% of whatever the original ticket was. Even the platform

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: would be capped at 10%.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: That's how I read those. A ticket reseller shall not charge more than 110% of the total price of an original ticket.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, they're not the reseller though. So I think the There's a person that bought the ticket, they're selling that ticket on a reseller platform. Right? So I'm trying to get this straight in my head.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding, I listened to a little bit of the testimony from StubHub last week, right? And I think their position would be they're not the ones reselling the ticket, right? The individual is utilizing their platform and the individual is setting the price of the ticket. The way I would read this is there would be a price cap on it. And they would not be able to authorize individuals to sell it above that cap. Would maybe a question to defer to the AG's office, not to put them on the spot. I know they're in the room. But they're the ones that would enforce this. So how would they approach that? But as I read it, it's a ticket reseller. So the individual who's trying to sell the ticket on that secondary market can't sell it for above the 110% of the original cost.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So But does that mean that then the platform says, I'm

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: going to charge you $10 to sell that ticket? I don't think there's anything prohibiting the platform from charging the individual for the authorization of getting access to our ticket exchange. So the original price is $100 of the ticket. The person's going to resell it. And StubHub says, hey, you can only sell us for a maximum of $110 on our site, and we're gonna charge you $10 for the use of our site. I don't see anything wrong with those things happening.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The ticket seller, not the ticket purchaser would pay the fee from the platform.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: The way I would read this, the individual ticket seller in StubHub wouldn't be able to pass that fee on to the customer if it resulted in the price that the individual pays being greater than a 110% of the original ticket value. Okay. You have subsection c here, which is the ban on deceptive URLs. And if you all recall, there was a great question from Brett Cooper about this saying that you can't use the artist name, the venue name. This is under the sub one in the promotional materials or social media promotions. And does an entity run afoul of that if they're simply, I'm selling you a ticket to this artist's concert at this location, and am I running afoul of that in promotions? Come get the tickets on my website. Is that a promotional material? That's not a defined term. And so I did go and I looked at what did pass in Maine. What they have is this subdivision e here. So it would be a ticket reseller or ticket issuer may not. And then looking at the e, use deceptive website addresses or imply endorsement or ownership of any intellectual property of the venue or artist without explicit written authorization of the venue or artist. To me, that seems to be much more high level, but still trying to target the concerns that you all or my understanding that you all are trying to tackle. This would give the attorney general's office, if they're still doing enforcement of this at the conclusion of your recommended changes to the bill, I think some leeway as they currently have with other consumer protection statutes to ensure that as long as it's not deceptive, then the individual or ticket reseller would be okay. So that's an option.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Nope. My apologies, hit the wrong button.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: So going back to this here, you have currently under the draft, the ban on deceptive URLs with this very lengthy description of what that includes and whether you want to address that subdivision one. Subdivision two is just the entity, the ticket reseller cannot imply that they are affiliated or endorsed by a specific venue, team, artist, including using the words official without their permission. Subsection D, you have the prohibition on speculative ticket sales. And then subdivision E one and two, moving forward, you have that registration requirement with Secretary of State's office. My understanding is the proposal at this point is maybe to remove that, possibly have some sort of report back requirements as my understanding of the conversation from the last time I was here. So I would remove that subsection. So I'm not gonna walk through this line by line. But there was in five, there was the bonding requirements. My recommendation was to remove the bonding requirements. And if you're not going to have the registration piece, I don't know that the corresponding bonding requirement really is applicable. And then you have the violation unfair deceptive acts in commerce, which as you all know is then enforced by the attorney general's office or a state's attorney. And then you have the consumer education campaign, which talked about utilizing some of the funds from the registration. But if you're going to remove the registration, whether you want to continue with this or remove

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the tool.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: The only other thing I was gonna mention so I brought up and we quick conversation about the deceptive URLs piece. I mentioned the language that is in Maine for you to look at as possible use here if you want to incorporate something of that nature. I believe, Mr. Chair, you shared some information that came from an external party. Happy to walk through that if you all would like now or at some point.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think we can look at it now. This came from Connecticut that didn't get put into law. I guess they ran out of time, but this is a definition that they had.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: That's helpful because I tried to find it in Connecticut statutes, and I was unsuccessful. And so one of my comments was going to be, you might want to independently verify this. But based on this draft, and I'm trying to zoom in, I can keep zooming in if that's helpful. Okay. So keeping some of the lead in language unlawful for secondary ticket exchange reseller or operator of any website purporting to sell or offer for sale event tickets that links or redirects to a secondary ticket exchange. All that's your lead in language. It will be altering the sub one there to say that it would be unlawful to advertise or facilitate the sale or resale of any ticket to an entertainment event by way of an internet website if the internet domain of such internet website or any Internet subdomain of such Internet website contains the name of the venue for such entertainment event, the name of the entertainment event, including the name the group scheduled to perform, any name that is substantially similar to the name described. I think this is slightly less of the challenge that you've identified with the current language of one, but I'm not sure that it fully cleans up the issue. I think the conversation, as I recall listening to some of the testimony, was if you have stubhub.com and then there's a backslash person's name or venue name because that's where the ticket has been associated with under that website, etcetera. As you all know, if you're looking at our website, it's pretty straightforward. It's legislature backslash the bill number or the committee name. That's how you delineate these things. Others in the committee are probably much more familiar with website domains than I am. But I just think you may still have the same problem here. Looking at it, you wouldn't be able to facilitate the sale or resale of a ticket by using an Internet domain or any sub domain of such Internet website that contains the name of the venue. Maybe that's your intention. I'm just letting you know that I'm not sure that this language as proposed is a significant change from what was currently there if you're trying to potentially address the concern that's brought up. It doesn't prohibit the use of this in social or promotional materials. So you have changed that piece. But the domain names themselves, primarily with this language, will be addressed at. So I'll just leave that with you all. I'm happy to answer any questions you have for me. The last piece I was going to comment was my understanding around disclosures and certain disclosure requirements. What I've seen in some of the other states that have enacted similar provisions are disclosures primarily around the cost of the ticket on the resell site and making sure that information is clearly displayed for the consumer. There was discussion about requiring the ticket reseller to display that they are a ticket resale site. And some other conversations I've just had about potential disclosure about the number of tickets available, for example, through a particular ticket reseller. I don't think there's significant concern going down any of those directions. I just wanted to flag for the committee so you all are aware you would be compelling speech in that instance. And so it is governed by First Amendment constitutional scrutiny and concerns. I think if you're keeping it at that level, requiring some sort of acknowledgment or disclosure that a ticket is a ticket reseller on their website, and then potentially requiring some sort of disclosure about the number tickets available on that site. So it's not misleading to the customer that there are only that number of tickets available in the entirety of the universe, if you will. Those are factual disclosures. And I think that if it were to be challenged in court, I think it is likely to be upheld. I can go into the constitutional analysis if you all would like. It doesn't raise as much of a concern, but it does bring into question some constitutional concerns just for your awareness about speech and compelling speech. Yeah. So it sounded like you

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: were distinguishing between disclosure of factual kind of materials like you just We're distinguishing We're talking about disclosure of price for the initial ticket. And are you distinguishing that in terms of speech issues?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: I would put all of them in the bucket of, a court's gonna look at it and say, this is compelling commercial speech. When you get into the commercial speech realm, a court generally can apply a lower level of scrutiny because we're not talking about private speech here. And then when you get into the fact that it is only disclosing or only requiring disclosure of factual matter, you're looking at even a rut's level of scrutiny for the court to look at. And so if a court is looking at it and determining that it is factual and uncontroversial disclosure, which I would argue all three of those things would be, typically seller price.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right. Okay.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: And then if you're wanting to disclose something about the number of tickets available and wanting to ensure that the consumer understands that you're referring to tickets available on that website, for example. I think all of those would be factual disclosures. And the court's going to look at and determine whether or not you have they're going look at it basically on a rational basis review. It's not going to elevate to some sort of immediate or strict scrutiny in that instance.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Can we can we mandate that they link the original site

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: as a disclosure? I know. I get it. No, I think if you go that route, you're compelling more speech on behalf of the ticket reseller. And I think you're probably going to start to sway into a more critical review of a court as to the reasoning that you're compelling that speech. I don't wanna think about it. If you want to go that direction, I would wanna do some more legal research and come back to you on that one.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I can see the original venue may not look like that, their names are bigger either. Jonathan?

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Thanks much. Cameron, part of what we hear a lot has to do with, well, who actually owns the whose ticket is it really? And what I'm curious about is the notion of compelling speech. Does it have the same weight when it when it involves the transfer of a thing that the entity being compelled doesn't actually possess? Does that matter at all?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: I would probably want to tease that out with you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: I think the first thing we're gonna look at is, you know, what type of speech are we talking about and are you compelling speech? Is it commercial speech or is it, you know, non commercial speech? And then what type of speech is it? And then from there, what is the justification that you all are requiring the speech for? So if what I'm hearing, like if you wanted to have a disclosure that the ticket reseller isn't the one who actually owns the ticket, I could see something like that being in a similar analysis of what we've already discussed. It's more of a factual disclosure that you're requiring. It's a statement about the goods or services that are being sold themselves. And the question is going to be, is it reasonably related to the government interest here that you're trying to serve? I think all three of those things are probably a yes in that instance. But I can't guarantee these outcomes for you, obviously. But if that is the type of disclosure that you're thinking about, which is how I interpreted what you were saying.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Yeah. I think I think that that gets at it pretty neatly, Cameron. Thank you very much.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: So similar to the eBay issue where you go on to eBay, you know you're purchasing it from a third party that's not eBay. I wouldn't make that assumption. Well, eBay fully discloses it. It says, this is the vendor you're buying from, whereas I just meant that doesn't do that. I just meant that everyone interacting with eBay may not know that. If eBay says it themselves, then you hope that the individual would see that and know that. Right. And would you be able to compel that kind of disclosure? Because that's factual. And that's what I was trying to kind of allude to, to Representative Cooper's question. I think if wanting to, in addition, require there to be a disclosure that StubHub is not the owner of the ticket, if they're not already disclosing and you're wanting to legally mandate that they disclose that information, off the top of my head, I think you're likely in the same type of constitutional analysis. And it is likely to be permissible that you can do that.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Herb? Thank you, Paul. So it's a hypothetical scene. Great. You have to answer hypotheticals. I feel like I'm in law school. What if you ask the reseller to simply disclose the price the resale purchase ticket?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: So you would say, you know, you individual who are on the site. The concern that I could see there is how does StubHub validate that information? So then are you

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: StubHub is maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but isn't StubHub purchasing the ticket from an event? That's not my understanding

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: of how it works. Based on the testimony they had, it would be I would go on to StubHub, and I don't know, I'm assuming I would need to create some sort of account, etcetera. And then I am putting the ticket that I own on StubHub's website for sale at a price that I'm choosing. This is based on StubHub's testimony from last week. I don't know how the interaction between the two works. Does StubHub get a percentage? Is it a flat rate, etcetera? I do not know. But my understanding from their testimony was StubHub said they're not the ones who actually own the ticket. In all instances, I think they said they do have some. Feel like the individual said that they do sell some directly. Yes, sir.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's a contractual agreement.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, Mr. Chair. Was just going say, feel like you would potentially be straying into an area of compelling someone to say something that they either may not be able to validate or it I

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: wasn't wanting go there. Was just trying to figure out some way that the ultimate purchaser knows what the original price I think some of the confusion is when we look at the definition of reseller, which means the person engaged in the resale of tickets. Does that include the person that has the tickets that wanna sell the tickets as well as the platform that the tickets being sold on? And is that standard is that a standard definition that other jurisdictions have?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: I would need to go I would wanna double check to answer your second question, mister chair. How is it compared relative to some of the other states that have this? And then just looking at the definition, a reseller is the person engaging in the resale of tickets and the resale is the second or subsequent sale of a ticket by any method. In that situation, talked about One's probably going to argue the reseller is the person selling the tickets and not Step Up. If I'm Step Up, I'm going make that argument. Yes, because

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: we have a definition for secondary ticket exchange.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: But then I'd wanna go down because yeah. I'm just looking up where exchange comes in. So there are certain provisions in here that apply to, and I'm just looking at based on the most recent amendment that we looked at, there are certain provisions that appear to only apply to the ticket reseller and other provisions that apply to both a reseller and a ticket exchange. So, yes, sir. I'd be happy to to go kinda do that comparison with what we have in some of the other statutes for for this week.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: More complicated the more I look into it. Yeah. That's that's it. So we have a definition of ticket issuer, six. And then in b, when we talk about price cat, we say a ticket reseller or a ticket issuer amount charged more than a 110% total. How does the ticket issuer get involved in that?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: That was a question that had been raised to me via email and

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Because I think because is that saying that we're limiting the the original venue from charging more than 10% over their cost?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: That's how I read it. As the language came to me this way, yes, I think

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you read it the that intent.

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: May not be the intent. Yes, sir. That issue was raised. And another thing to review.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Isn't the issue that we're dealing with a website that is facilitating the transaction of reselling the ticket?

[Rep. Abbey Duke (Member)]: I have the issues in

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the deal. Yes. So we're talking about five different issues. Of the many issues. And it's therapies that are also dictating the resale price. So don't we need to deal with that?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: It's So I think and kind of just looking at how this is kind of penciled out in main for right now, There's some similar language that's used there. So for example, this is the prohibited practices that currently exist in the Maine statute. And so it says at the top here, a ticket reseller or ticket issuer may not. And then you go down here to the corresponding subdivision G, which is similar to what you have in front of you about the price cap. So the ticket reseller or ticket issuer may not charge more than 10% of the total price of the original ticket, including taxes and fees for the service of providing a marketplace for the resale of tickets. So I don't know if there are original ticket sellers that are also operating markets for resale of tickets. This is a space that I'm just not familiar with. I don't buy that many event tickets.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I was wondering if this was intended to capture that space where a venue doesn't sell their own tickets, they use one of the different sellers, they go into partnerships with them. And so that reseller is the ticket issuer. And that was the intention to prevent that relationship to that certain level of markup. But I would think that that would be a good venue to make that decision. I don't know there's new contract between the two.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So doesn't somebody like Step Up not consider themselves necessarily a reseller since they don't have possession of the tickets and aren't doing the resellers? They're a marketplace and facilitator for the transaction?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think at some point they have contractual agreement.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, with the individual that's selling. Well, with the venue. Well, with the venue. But on the individual side of reselling, does the contract that they have with the individual selling the single or whatever ticket, does that also count? They also have contracts. I'm wondering if we can

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: get more testimony in interstitials. Think we need more testimony.

[Rep. Abbey Duke (Member)]: May I ask a question too? This is sort of a general question that also maybe is a bit of an opinion. Is I wonder if we're not overcomplicating. What we're trying to avoid is people not realizing that they're purchasing from a reseller or they're purchasing a speculative ticket. So from my perspective, the price regulation piece of it is the thing that I'm less interested in, in that I don't know there's a harm as people pay more than 10% come to face value for the ticket. I think the harm is when they don't know that they're doing that, or that they don't realize that it's a reseller. And I would imagine that the sort of opinion is that there's going to be business models where maybe they own some tickets, maybe they're the official ticket seller for a venue, and maybe they're a reseller as well. So those definitions or roles are pretty squishy.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Michael?

[Cameron Woodhoff (Legislative Counsel)]: And kind of where you are on that, Abbey, I think that's

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: concur. Why don't we get some more tests? Susan, you've been here listening to the conversation. Would you like to join us? Daniel, after Susan's speech, we'll take you. We have a hard stop at 04:15. Okay.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Thanks. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me again. I'm Susan Evans McClure, the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. I am hearing from venues and fans across state. They're just really appreciative by how much time you all are spending on this. It means a lot. The topic means a lot to people on all sides of the industry, and it's nice to have the legislature feel like the legislature is seeing you and caring about the things that are important to you. And that's been some really positive feedback that I've gotten on this, so thank you. I specifically am gonna talk today about the price cap piece and our intent behind it. I heard what you all were talking about today. I'll say squarely, our intent is that the consumer who's buying the ticket the second time does not pay more than 110% of the original price. Because we know that the price cap to me and to our industry is really the heart of this bill. We know that price cap is going be the most impactful piece of ending the incentives for predatory online practices, namely the selling of tickets for grossly inflated prices and tricking Vermonters into purchasing them. So price caps are a crucial part of this market working effectively and protecting consumers. Price caps, they're not setting the original price of the ticket. What they're really doing is regulating abusive resale markets that have no relationship to real demand. And the price caps are preventing conduct that's distorting competition in the market too. So you heard last week about states that use caps on resale that have since repealed those laws. So I did a little digging into this, and the timing of the repeal of those laws in the mid 2000s actually aligns with the growth and consolidation of the resale ticket industry and market and the professionalization of lobbying efforts by the industry to undermine common sense regulations that worked for a really long time. And since those price caps were repealed, this issue has only become worse and worse for consumers over the past twenty, twenty five years. One of the false claims you heard is that when you regulate the price of resale tickets, it limits competition and directs consumers to unregulated black markets. There is no evidence to suggest that a price cap can make things worse than they are right now for Vermont consumers and venues, which you've heard about time and again from our small venues across the state. Even in research that was funded by the resale ticket industry, when you look at reports of fraud in the social media marketplace, resale marketplace, there's consistency across countries, whether the country has a price cap law or not. Legislation that has price caps is not actually unique to Maine. Maine is currently the only bill in a US state. There are currently bills being explored in multiple states considering price crops across the country, including California, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, DC, and many others. In recent federal testimony in the Senate Commerce Committee, the musician Kid Rock actually started his testimony. And yes, this is where I quote Kid Rock in this testimony today. He started by saying that he was an ardent capitalist, and he went on to say, quote, In parts of Europe, resale ticket prices are capped, and it is working. I have been advocating for a 10% price cap on the resale of a ticket. Resale price caps work and protect real fans. Ireland outlawed the resale of tickets above their original value at some venues in 2021. Last fall, The United Kingdom passed a law banning the resale of tickets above face value across the entire country. Several other European countries have strict conditions on resale, including price caps. And the example that you heard last week in Ontario about price caps being repealed, what actually happened was in 2017, Ontario passed a law setting a 50% price cap, which already seems like a pretty big price cap. The government shifted. In 2019, the new government repealed part of that law that said, let's get rid of the price cap. Since then, there has been a huge increase in the cost of resale ticket sales, and people have been asking the government to reinstate the price cap because it worked so well. The issue became news last year. Many of you baseball fans may know this when the Blue Jays were in the World Series last fall. There were huge issues with price gouging on resale tickets, And there's been overwhelming demand in Ontario to return the price cap because they saw when they got rid of it, things got worse. So Maine's bill was based on years of research and evidence and work advocating for this 10% price cap. Our peers at venues in Maine are telling us that it is working. It was also noted that the Maine attorney general was really kind of working out how to enforce this legislation, which is why we have been partnered with the Vermont attorney general since day one to really make sure that this is something that's gonna work specifically here. When you make it illegal to resell a ticket for a grossly inflated price, what you're doing is removing the incentive for bad actors to scam Vermonters. And, you know, it's okay. And and in this fact, I think it's it's better than okay, it's important for Vermont to be in line with countries around the world on this issue. We can and should be setting the standard on how to protect artists and protect fans and sports events and consumers in every way that we can. And while the other pieces of this bill are very important pieces of the puzzle and will help in this work, what we've heard from across the world is that the price cap is really the thing that's going to move the needle on solving this problem. So when we talk about reselling too, these questions of kind of who's reselling, how do we do it, we've also said since day one, we don't want to end resale. Things happen, we get it. That's not the intent. And we certainly don't want to break what's working in Vermont. So that was really important to us that we understand what's already working for businesses so we're not unintentionally breaking that model. So I'll just share a few examples so you have some concrete Vermont examples of how resell is working here in ways that venues are happy with. So University of Vermont at UBM athletics, they sell their tickets through a ticket platform called Packiolin. They all have kind of quirky names. And as part of their agreement with a company, can resell their tickets directly through SeatGeek. They currently don't have a price cap on what you can set the ticket price for. So if you have season tickets to Hotmails hockey, you can't come to a game, you go right to their website, you press a button, you say resell on SeatGeek and you set the price for that. If UVM is fine with we're not

[Unidentified Committee Member]: saying they can't do that.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Another music example is the Stone Church venue in Brattleboro. Stone Church is a for profit music venue in Brattleboro. They actually have a partnership with Cash or Trade who you heard from a few weeks ago. When a show sells out at Stone Church, the agreement sets the method by which they can co promote that resale tickets are available. Their agreement also includes a provision that Stone Church will receive 3% of gross sales on their resale. So after the end of a year. Their owner and manager, Robin Johnson, let me know that they are in the first year of their contract, so they haven't seen any of that yet, but it's in the agreement. Robin also said, and I'm gonna quote him here too, I would gladly forego the 3% if that would help us focus on a 10% price cap. The scalping market is negatively affecting our business and fixing that problem far outweighs the 3% that the venue gets back. And just a third concrete example is Higher Ground in South Burlington. They have an agreement with a third party reseller as well. The company is called Tixle. Higher Ground's founder Alex Crothers shared that this creates a safe and transparent marketplace for the customer to exchange their tickets. So if a Vermont consumer wants to exchange, to buys a ticket and wants to resell it, they're still able to do that. And even as this bill is currently written right now, they could still post it on StubHub. They would just have to abide with that 10% price cap. So as we talked about, there is some concern that any exemption can open loopholes for bad actors. But we would be fully supportive of an exemption that allows for contract relationships between venues and a reseller. Again, it's not our place to stop. We don't wanna fix No. We wanna focus on the worst of the worst. We don't wanna be fixing things that aren't broken. There's also just a few examples of Vermont artists and businesses who are recognizing how broken this current this market currently is and are just choosing not to participate in it at all. So Vermont Green FC yesterday, you know, once you're looking for tickets, the news is everywhere. But just yesterday, they announced their ticket policy for this upcoming season. They're gonna do a ticket lottery, but they also say that resale is not permitted. They just don't allow resale of their tickets. That's their choice. They can totally do that. Another example from today actually is Vermont's own Noah Khan, who's doing a national tour. He has made tickets to his upcoming tour non transferable, so that means you cannot put them in someone else's name and let them come in. He's, only allowing resale through Ticketmaster's built in resale platform. He's much bigger than Vermont, so he won't be playing here. We don't have any Ticketmaster venues, but he'll be playing at Ticketmaster venues across the country. However, what we have seen today so ticket you cannot buy a ticket to the Noah Con concert until today. Starting two days ago, you could go on StubHub and buy a ticket for $450, $600 Today, the tickets are $850 Not only do those tickets not exist yet, but the tour has specifically said that the tickets are non transferable. And I can go right now, I can spend $850 on StubHub to buy a ticket that may or may not exist and probably won't get me in. So this comes back to this idea of the reason people are doing that is to make money off of it and make the $800 $1,000 off the fans. If you are not allowed to make if there are guardrails around how much money you can repost that ticket for, you take the incentive away to be a bad actor in this marketplace and keep things focused on the fans and the artists and the venues. We are in favor of all the changes we just talked about and that Cameron just walked through. As whatever the legal version of strengthening disclosure requirements is, we're for that. And one of the other changes that we wanted to look at with the removal of the registry and is changing the start date because we know that this isn't a huge issue right now for Vermont consumers. So if we're gonna make a change about this, not waiting until 2027 would be something we I'm pushing everybody's time, so I'm happy to take questions.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The price cap language says a ticket reseller or ticket issuer cannot charge more than 10%. Was that ticket issuer language intentional?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I am gonna defer to the legal friends in the room on that. My our intent with this is that whoever is selling the ticket the second time around cannot mark it up more.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Second time.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So the you have tried the venue sets the price. So me, I am Susan Evans Performing Arts Center. A ticket is a $100. I put it on my website for a $100. That's the price from our venue perspective. So if someone if Emily Carris Duncan buys a ticket for my performing arts center, she can't go. She resells it. The intent is she should be able to sell that ticket for up to a $110 anywhere she wants.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Or if you're providing a ticket resell on your for the same venue, you can't mark it up more than 10%.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That was the original yes. Mhmm.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: If you take the ticket back, there's some cost to you. Exactly. Now I said that. That's entirely true. Yep. Alright. Thanks. Any other questions for Susan? Great. Thanks, Susan.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Thanks, everybody.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Same here.

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: Everyone. I guess I know that you have a hard stop right now. And so I can do a couple of things. I can answer any questions. I can read my testimony. I can send my testimony in. Happy to work with you guys, whatever makes the most sense.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Think think let us know what side of the coin you're on on this one?

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: We are fully in support of the bill. We represent artists directly. We are artists we're a trade organization of artist managers and agents, including the managers for FISH in NOACON. And I can say that we fully support the actions here. And I agree with everything that Susan just said. And I'm happy to answer any questions. I noticed there were

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: some

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: unsure ideas floating around when I was on here and listening to you folks. So I'm happy to answer anything. And I can also just send the written testimony that I've prepared.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yep. If you can send your written testimony, that'd be great. We'll post it. Yeah.

[Rep. Abbey Duke (Member)]: I ask one question? Yeah. Nathan, I'm

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just curious. So the looking at the Noah Con tickets on StubHub that are nontransferable go anywhere from $800 to $6,000 right now. Do you think those, like, actually p and anything in between 4,000 and 5,000. Is do you think there's actually people, or do you think there's, like, bots that are doing that? I'm just curious. Like, since the tickets were on sale today or, you know, within the last twenty four hours or whatever, it seems that seems outrageous.

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: So the people there people listing the tickets, Bots would be used to obtain the tickets. However, if those are nontransferable tickets, those are almost all speculative tickets.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Okay.

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: And likely, they don't exist. Great. I can also send I'll send along with my testimony a few reports that we did, both the national report and specifically a report from the Maryland Attorney General's Office. I can say, just so everyone knows, these ticket resale restrictions go into effect, they are very effective at curbing this behavior. We looked at states that allow open transfer, New York State, and states that allow for resale restrictions to happen, like Maryland. We looked at one tour. It it was The Cure. They were playing stadiums and all these things. The Cure had three tickets resold in Maryland on StubHub, which they, you know, they were trying to tamper resale as much as possible. In New York, where it was impossible to tamper any resale, they had 3,200 tickets listed on StubHub and sold on StubHub. And not only sold, I think the profit margins for those shows was about $500,000 So the resellers were making half $1,000,000 in profit on those tickets sold. That's the kind of money that we're talking about trying to take out and put back into consumers' hands because right now they're spending significant amounts more. Our resale study shows that on average resale tickets are twice as expensive as face value. And that matters deeply to artists. That matters deeply to fans.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Other questions for Nathaniel?

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: I'll happily send my written testimony. Yeah, please do.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you Yep, for hanging

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: and I just want everyone to know that I am a product of the Vermont and Rutland Public Education school system and the arts system of Vermont as well. I represented Rutland in districts, all states. I represented Vermont in the All Eastern Jazz Ensemble and the All New England Jazz Ensemble. I've played at Discover Jazz Fest. So I might not be living in the state anymore, but I'm deeply connected to this. And I think this is an absolutely amazing thing for the state to do. And if this were to become law, you would be a leader in the nation and we'd be forever grateful for it. So just wanted to get that side out there as well.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you. Glad to hear you're a fellow person that's gone through the Allstate New England music fest. I I did the same thing about many years before you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Gosh. Some

[Nathaniel (artist managers/agents trade association representative)]: of my fondest

[Unidentified Committee Member]: memories. Instrument.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Committee, I think we have places to go. So we will continue having these discussions. We'll set this up for more time next week. If there if we find a time this week, I think we try to have a discussion of where the committee is looking ongoing so that we can give our direction to our legal counsel and have it finish the draft step. So with that, tomorrow 09:00, we're hearing from the Vermont evaluation of rural technical assistance. Then we are going to walk through the first generation of the CTE bill. So that should be very impressive. Back here at 09:00 tomorrow morning, will be ecstatic to go out to the live and see everyone in the morning.