Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Tuesday, 03/10/2026 at 02:46. So we're here to have more discussions on H512. We have Representative Donahue's amendment. Need to hear from the Legislative Council. Or hear from arts council as well. So, Amber, if you can forecast.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. We did a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: quick walk through of

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the language of the amendment this morning in near term of sponsor of the amendment. So I was just going to start by answering one of the questions that was brought up just to clarify for you all the language of the amendment. And then happy to answer any questions that you all may have that may have come up subsequent to this morning. As I'm pulling Zoom up, the proposed amendment amends the definition of a reseller, but it doesn't actually change the language that's in the cap provision of subsection C. So the question was about, we have this carve out for this individual. And could that individual then go on to a secondary ticket exchange marketplace and sell that ticket for above 110%? Then how would you distinguish between the individuals who are capped if they haven't bought the ticket for personal reasons versus the people who are capped? One thing I just wanted to, in answer to the question, highlight was the amendment doesn't change the prohibition that applies to the secondary ticket exchange itself. What I mean by that is I'll just share my screen so I can be specific. This is the bill. We have this definition of reseller here on line 17. Reseller means a person engaged in the resale of tickets. The amendment is proposing to change that to have this carve out. It doesn't include the individual reselling a ticket purchased for personal use at a single event. That's the carve out. Then you go back to the bill as it came out of this committee and you look at the subsea, which is the price cap language. So it has the ticket reseller shall not sell the ticket for greater than 110%. That's where that carve out in the definition is going to apply. So the person who has purchased that ticket for personal use of a single event is not a reseller. So they're not considered within that language of the prohibition or the cap I should say. But there's still the sub two, which is a secondary ticket exchange shall not authorize for resale on the exchange a ticket for a price at greater than 110%. So even in the event that the individual has bought the ticket for personal use and they're wanting to sell it, so now they don't meet the definition of the reseller, if they were to go on to a secondary ticket exchange as this language is drafted, the exchange could, according to this language, tell them you can't sell that ticket for greater than 110% on this platform. Now I imagine you could get into an issue where the person then pushes back if you have a savvy individual who don't care what his active reads and says, no, I can plot this for personal use. I'm carved out. I'm not defined as a reseller. My reading of this language is a secondary ticket exchange would still have to say, we are prohibited from authorizing the sellers at 110. So that's one piece that I just wanted to answer to the question that was asked and make sure you all were aware. I can see this becoming somewhat problematic to administer for the Attorney General's office because you have hard outs that would apply depending on the avenue of which the individual is trying to sell the ticket. First off, the AG is going to have to make a determination of whether the individual is the reseller or not. So are you the individual who purchased this for personal use for a single event? I was already asked the question of would this apply to just one ticket or what about multiple tickets? And that scenario was brought up earlier when you were walking through about somebody who was looking for four tickets. The language of the amendment says a ticket, individual reselling a ticket. But I would find it hard for the AG, if they came in, to try to distinguish, well, bought two tickets for me and my spouse. I'm trying to resell them. I'm selling one, my spouse is selling the other one. So I imagine that becoming problematic for the AG. But then from there, you would have to determine whether they've met the reseller, and then where are they selling the ticket. Are they selling it on a secondary ticket exchange, and the exchange is allowing them to do so? And now is the exchange in violation of the section? Does this require the exchange to do further investigation to determine whether or not the individual who's selling it is a reseller or not? Did you purchase it for commercial use or personal use? So I'm not advising you to disregard the amendment. It's just a policy decision for you all whether this carve out is something you all would support. Legally, I can see potential problems with the administration of it. But I did just want to answer, like I said, the question that was raised this morning. Because even though the individual would no longer meet the definition of the reseller under the specific sample, the exchange itself would still be capped at still be required to cap the concealed ticket price.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: That wouldn't apply to Facebook Marketplace because it's not actually a ticket exchange there because you have to pay the individual.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I believe that's the intent of the admin. Don't want to speak for the sponsor directly, but that was the and remembering what was discussed on the floor you know the Friday before you went on break was that discussions exactly about individuals exchanging more directly and

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: not having a cap on veterans. So the concern would be for the AG office dealing with granted how much are they going to deal with?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean usually you possibly run into issues because you are treating similarly situated individuals differently. Depending on A, whether the person bought the ticket for personal use or not. I imagine there are some individuals who invest in tickets for the purpose of commercial activity. How do you prove that? So you're treating individuals slightly differently there, but then you're also treating them slightly differently depending on where they go about trying to sell that ticket. If you have the carve out and then I'm selling the ticket on Front Witch Forum, I have no cap. But if I go to sell it on and I'll just use StubHub because I know they've testified in this committee. So you go to sell it on StubHub, and StubHub says, we're not legally allowed to authorize you to do that. So when you're treating similarly situated individuals like that differently, you potentially run into issues. People can challenge that under constitutional equal protection arguments are probably what would be made. They don't think that they would necessarily be successful, but it's an argument that can be made. And I know that the AG's office had that concern or was looking at that. And then it just becomes really more of an enforcement mechanism. How do they go about enforcing it? As you all know, if you have a blanket prohibition, it makes it easier for both the public to understand and for government agencies to enforce. Policy is a decision for you all about whether to have carve outs and for what purposes are they intended. And the more you have carve outs and carve outs are carve outs, it just becomes more difficult to enforce. I'm not telling you that's a good or a bad thing. I'm just commenting a little for you all when it comes to actually trying to take the language that you have here and how is that going to actually be enforced on the ground against revolters. And then I should pause, Mr. Chair, your Vice Chair has certainly done. Edye?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Hi, thank you. I'm looking at the language on the new definition of reseller and I just really like some clarification. A person can be an individual or a business. An individual, does it have a definition in our laws?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: By using the term individual it would exclude a business organization. Generally that's the legal distinction that courts have given those two terms. Yep. When you went in for something to include a business entity, you would use person and an individual is interpreted to mean an actual human being.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: This That would answers,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: yep, thank you.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That answers.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: So I'm just thinking, following up on Edye's question. Yeah, an individual is not a business organization, but an individual could be business if they do it all themselves, right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: How I interpret what you're saying is an individual could purchase tickets for a business reason.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: But then it wouldn't be personal use.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But then it wouldn't be personal use, yes.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: So I had a follow-up question. In terms of the, you were saying, well, we have this revised definition of reseller that includes individuals' personal use, but that doesn't cover the ticket exchange kind of thing? Mean, I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not, but I could imagine that you try to craft carve out to the ticket reseller definition to incorporate that kind of thing. But then, right, whether or not that's a good idea.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I think the amendment just raises two questions

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I for I got I remember my question. How would the a ticket exchange be able to know whether that individual was actually an individual for personal use? I think that's a question if I were the ticket exchange, I would be

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: asking you all. How are we expected to go about making that determination? But then again, keep in mind, based on the language that you have in the bill, they don't need to make that inquiry because if I were the ticket exchange and somebody came to me and said, want to sell this $100 ticket for $120 I would say the statute requires us to cap what you can list it as of $110

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And then

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the person says, but I bought this for individual personal use. I have an exemption. I'm not a reseller. And the secondary ticket exchange could look at the language in the bill and say, it doesn't matter whether you're a reseller or not. We are still required to cap your resale at 110 percent. But I do think you're potentially putting them in that position of having to explain that to somebody potentially.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Cameron, actually, so the personal use feels like total gray areas we're all discussing. But don't know that we've discussed the single event piece. And I'm just curious, that also feels like a problematic piece where I'm not sure how you prove that somebody didn't buy you know, 20 different tickets for five different events in the hopes of reselling them. And so if you can't prove personal, how do you also prove single event stuff?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's good question. Then I would

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: If they did it once, can they never sell another ticket again? Not

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to try to dodge your question. Would defer them to the ATC for sure. Because if this were ultimately to be accepted by the body and we go into statute as the amendment is written, that is a question for the AG about how they would read it and how they would interpret it. I think the AG could look at it and say, we've found that you've listed 10 different event tickets online, and you're selling them all for 150 percent, 200% of the original tickets. And then they try to bring an action against person, and the person says, yes, but I bought them all for personal use to single events, so I'm not covered, I'm not meeting the definition of reseller, and then I would defer to them about how they were told about approaching that fact scenario.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: As we talk about personal use and thinking of FAA laws regarding drone usage, which I can take my drone up if I don't have a license, take pictures of the Capitol, post it on my Facebook page, fine. But if I post it on my campaign page, that becomes illegal if I don't have a license. And I know that sounds like, well, what's the difference? One is for personal use. One of them is for technically professional because I'm using it on my campaign page. And so I'm not I'm not sure I'm too concerned about the personal because I feel like I feel like you can it is gray, and even even that case is super gray. And believe me, the rules and regulations on that is very, very gray. But if you mess it up, it's like $20,000 fine. So that's not true. Anyway, the point is that think allowing it to have that ability to sell it on Frankfort Forum, I'm not as concerned about that. I

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: am. I think actually the testimony I'm pretty sure it was Stephan that was testifying that was saying that if the more restrictions were, like, put on something, it will encourage people to go to unregulated spaces like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and that. So, like, I actually feel like by doing this amendment, we're actually doing exactly what they warned to, like, not encourage, which was for people to use these. I get sorry.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I get what you're saying. But I think the difference between StubHub and Front Porch Forum and Facebook Marketplace, you kind of know what to get into. I mean, when you look at StubHub, I didn't realize what they were until this committee conversation. I thought they were selling tickets. They were the place to go to buy tickets. They're not. They're a reseller. They're no different than eBay. I didn't know that. But I know that Facebook Marketplace scams. We should ask the AG how many Marketplace scans occur in the state of France on a daily basis. Insisting people with Craigslist, right? Exactly. Don't want

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: to encourage people to go

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: to Craigslist in their unregulated spaces. Sorry. That was my fault.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: If safety is also part of the conversation, at least the industry is making, then yeah, this would be sidestepping the goal of buying those platforms if it exists.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Can you help me understand the second element of the amendment. Trying to compare the versions to make sure I get what's the executed prior to July 26, what the implications of that census are compared to the original.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So what I have on the screen is the bill as it was proposed coming out of this committee. So again, on the one you have the cap for the ticket reseller of 110%. And the two, you have the cap of 110% through the secondary ticket exchange. And then the sub three was the entire subsection shall not apply to the resale of tickets if the reseller has the written contract with the ticket issuer. And so no price cap in that situation. And my understanding is there were scenarios where an individual ticket issuer and this kind of came up on the floor, so just to clarify a little bit. If the ticket issuer contracts with an entity to sell their tickets for the initial sale, we're too small of a venue, we can't make this lift ourselves, we're going to contract with you to sell our tickets, you have the marketing capacity and the followers, the outreach, etc. That would not be covered under this act at all because you're talking about initial sale at that point. But my understanding based on the testimony you all had and conversations with the stakeholders here, are there are other scenarios where the event ticket issuer as a contract with someone for the resale of their tickets. Could be we contract with you entity because we want to provide our customers with a safe avenue if they need to resell their tickets. And so we tell them that you're the location we want them to go resell their tickets to. And my understanding is you have certain entities in Vermont that currently have those contracts. And sometimes they have caps built into the contract to say, if someone comes in and resells the ticket through your system, then it needs to be capped at 110% or 120%, I think, what some of caps were. So the original sub three was just a blanket carve out for those situations. If the entity has a contract for reselling of their tickets, then the price cap doesn't apply, and they would be able to negotiate whatever that cap would be. What the amendment will do is it will take that out entirely. So moving forward, a ticket issuer would not be able to make that contract for the resale and have their own price cap. So the 110% will apply moving forward for everything. But there are certain contracts that are already in place for them. And so the sponsor of the amendment didn't want to impact those contracts that already exist. You do potentially run into a contracts clause issue with you impaired obligations of contracts that are in existence. So the new sub three is saying that it doesn't apply to the resale of tickets under contract if the contract's been executed prior to the effective date. So there would be a window of time where current contracts that have been executed, the cap wouldn't apply to them. But anything moving forward after that, any contract entered into after that, the 110%

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: will apply.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: And therefore, with the amendment, the only entity under various circumstances could ever be above 110% is that individual selling a ticket that was for personal use.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And on the Facebook marketplace or front porch forum or something

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: or face to face. So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's the other thing is it wouldn't prohibit someone from going to the venue itself and selling the ticket directly there. I mean, it would essentially be any mechanism of selling it other than on a secondary ticket.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any more questions for Cameron?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: So if we're gonna add the 110% even with contracts, isn't that why not just pull it out? I mean, this is not really doing anything.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just signaling that it's not impacting contracts that are currently in the system. Generally speaking, any laws that you pass are going to apply prospectively, but if you don't have it in there, it could be a question. It's really just signaling to the entities that have the contracts that we're not impacting those contracts to not raise that potential question. But yes, it doesn't all authorize it moving forward.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: So Maine has this law, correct? Isn't that Do they have a version of it?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which has different elements that are not in this bill and slight differences. Do they address this issue? Let me double check. I don't I believe Let

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: check that myself.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They have a price cap. Yes. I just don't remember how it is structured. Susan may know better than

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the top of her. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I will get you your answer. I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: mean, I can

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Herb? Can Yeah, I'm just following up a little bit Tony was saying, that sub three seems to, to me anyway, turn a fairly broad exemption for those circumstances where this contract contracts are staying in the shoes of the issuer, regional issuer, and it's sort of turning it into a very much more exemption, because not only would you not be able to do that going forward, but also, it would still have a price gap on contracts issued before the fact that they're dead. So, there's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: probably not much more left to it.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: If know, that's the, that would be the effect that I see, but whether or not we didn't have this enough to go to that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any questions for camera? Susan. Good afternoon.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Susan McClure, executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. Sorry, I can't be with you in person today. I'm home with a sick child, so thank you to Zoom for allowing some flexibility in the workplace. Great. And thanks also for the opportunity to weigh in on the proposed amendment and for all of the work on this bill so far. I'll start just by saying that the majority of the people who are reselling tickets on the secondary market are individuals. The industry estimates that about 80% of resale is done by professional individual resellers. Individuals buy a ticket from a venue, and then the individual sells it on a secondary resale market. And they're doing this because they know they can make money off of this unregulated market. And as you've heard from me and from Vermont venues and from national leaders, the price caps, we all know, will make a big difference to ending the incentives for these individual bad actors and resell platforms to make money off of Vermonters. So our concern is that if you remove individuals from the definition of a reseller, that would pretty much nullify the impact that we want this bill to have. Additionally, there's really no way to tell who's buying a ticket for personal use or for resale purposes. And I'll share a really concrete example with you on this. Currently, when you buy a ticket at the Flynn, to complete your purchase, you have to check a box, and that box says that he says, and I'll quote them, the box, I attest that I am the ticket purchaser and will not submit fraudulent personal information with my ticket purchase. I do not intend to resell my purchased tickets on a secondary market. And you've heard, people check that box, they buy the ticket, and then they resell it. So attesting that you're an individual buying it for individual use is not currently preventing actors from taking advantage of Vermont consumers. And when you exempt individuals from the definition of a reseller, it doesn't solve the problem you're trying to address. There have been some questions about enforcement, which I would continue to defer to the Attorney office on. I think what it brings up for me is that all loopholes provide windows for savvy scammers to step right through, And what this amendment seems to be doing is creating a loophole for a problem that doesn't currently exist. We understand the spirit of, you know, if people can't resell their ticket or feel like they want to resell their ticket, but that's not what we're hearing. You know, Cameron mentioned potential challenges to the bill, and the reality is we don't want anyone to sell their ticket for above 110%. It's wrong if a guy stands outside a venue and sells a ticket for $1,000 It's wrong if they scam their neighbor for $1,000 It's wrong if they do it through a resale platform. But the reason that we haven't brought this up as an issue is because it's not an issue that's been raised with us. And even the example you heard this morning of the hockey tickets that were for sale, the hypothetical part was that the person would have been willing to pay more. So we've had a lot of hypothetical examples, but we actually have a lot of concrete examples of what is currently happening right now and what we're trying to solve. So a question that keeps coming up, which I think is a really important question with this bill, is will Vermonters still be able to resell their tickets? And the answer is a resounding yes, they absolutely will. As the bill is written now, Vermonters will still be able to resell tickets. The bill is designed to end predatory behaviors and is in line with other state legislation that protects Vermont consumers from predatory behavior. And not only will Vermonters be able to resell their tickets, they can be more confident in a transparent resale market. So Vermonters who are regular concert and sports ticket buyers are asking for this market to be regulated. They want to know that when they buy a ticket, they're not getting screwed. They want to know that when they have to sell the ticket, they have a marketplace that is fair that they can access. No one who loves live events and concerts in Vermont and wants to see them succeed is trying to make gobs of money off of reselling their tickets. They know the margins are slim in this business, and they want Vermont artists and venues to thrive because that's part of the magic of living here. We want our local venues, our local sports teams to be able to exist. So while we understand the questions that were brought up behind this amendment, I think really from our perspective, this amendment is complicating things in a way that just opens it up to lots of misunderstanding and moves away from the core protection that was so, I think, thoughtfully crafted in the way the bill ended up. I'll also say that the second part of the amendment would be exemption for contracted resellers only including contracts that are currently in place. If that works for the committee, are totally fine with that. Actually, I think it's a great solution to honor the one contract that we found for a reseller in the state that's currently in place. Again, we've brought this up before, if something's working for a venue, we don't our intent is not to say you can't do what's working. We have not heard any cases where anyone is saying the resale market is working well and fairly, so what this bill in its current state does is try to make that market work transparently and fairly for consumers and venues. So I wanted to share kind of the importance of the individual aspect of it, because it is the individual who is the one who's reselling the ticket and what this may open up with taking out individuals. I did hear Cameron's legal explanation of that, which again, I would defer to the alleged counsel and the Attorney General's office on kind of the legal pieces of how that would be enforced. But just from our perspective of the problems we're seeing, the problems we're hearing from venues and consumers, and the way that it's been addressed, that's where where we stand on the amendment.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Susan? Susan, the one thing that's been brought up is is in the price cap of resale for event tickets where it says a secondary ticket exchange shall not authorize for resale on the exchange a ticket for a price greater than a 110%. So I'm just wondering what your thoughts on, you know, the individual that tries to sell on a resale market. This is saying that the re that that the platform can't accept that ticket price if it's above a 110%.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yes, and I think that so part of that question and what we heard from Representative Donahue too is, so if you're not and I think my understanding is, if you're not using the secondary market, are there any rules that apply to you? I think from again, And this would be an enforcement question for the Attorney General's Office might I mean, frankly, it feels what I wouldn't want to do is make it okay for someone to stand outside the Flynn and say, Give me $500 in cash and you can have a ticket to this show. That feels like really going backwards in I mean, although, I don't know, maybe thirty, forty years ago when that happened more frequently, that was more transparent than the online resale market. That would be some of our concern around that. But also, again, I think I go back to that's not the issue that we're seeing. We're not seeing any issues right now with neighbors selling to their neighbors and having it be a horrible scam situation. We're not even really seeing any issues, and this tracks with internationally what we've seen. We're not seeing issues on FrontPorch Forum when people are posting for tickets that they're selling. Where we're seeing the issues are through the resale platforms, usually out of state individuals who are trying to make money off the system. You've heard me talk about this at length over the past several months. Think, again, yeah, our focus is the resale platform. My concern would be that if you take the word individual out because they are individuals who are selling on the resell platform, that would be extremely confusing for everyone to explain the bill. But again, if there's like a legal side of that, that is not my expertise at all, and it still gets to where we want it to get, then we're fine with it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Do you think that this could open up the black market that individuals could then start using Front Porch Forum, know, Facebook marketplace and what other areas there are that they could sell tickets on outside of ticket exchange platforms?

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I mean, don't have I'm trying to use data to answer my question, but this is not example that we've seen in any other places going this route. So my gut as someone who's worked in this industry for a long time is that yes, definitely. Know, if you're a person, know, Flint has tracked people who are doing this, right? So they collect all the data when you buy a ticket, and they can track that from the ticket that's resold. So they've actually, their staff person has called people and been like, Hey, did you buy this ticket for resale? And they're actual people who are doing this, right? They're individuals who are making money off of the system. If a person can still make money off the system, and the system just moves his Facebook Marketplace, then I don't see a reason why they wouldn't do that. Which is part of my skepticism of creating a carve out that would open up more windows for confusion and potential avenues for people getting scammed. I also think one other thing to think about with these are the examples we do have of this working well and of price caps working well, and how can weand we've talked about this kind of since the beginningis learning from the places that are doing this well, and this kind of a carve out, far as I have seen, and I've been pretty seeped in this, this kind of a carve out for individuals doesn't exist anywhere internationally that we've seen at all. And I would be reluctant. That's not the vanguard we want to set.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So you

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: mentioned the carve out and that it's not anywhere. I'm looking at, I think I'm looking at Maine's statute on this. And it just says ticket reseller means a business entity whose primary business is the sale or resale tickets. The ticket reseller does not include a nonprofit corporation as defined by blah, blah, blah. So I mean, in Maine statute, it doesn't even cover individual sales.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So you're reading from Maine's definitions right now?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Correct. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The only thing I was going

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to comment was that, yes, I found it, and that is the definition, at least under that provision. What I don't know is if there is a separate provision in statute that addresses things like I've seen in other states where they have specific sections directed at selling tickets outside of venues, for example, and separate sections that address trunk sales, etcetera. So that is the definition of that section of past and main. Yes, sir. And I don't know what else is in main statute that could be directed towards individuals, but I'd be happy to work.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I I'm just pointing it out. I don't have a problem being more restrictive in this situation. Just, we are being more restrictive than main statute according to what I see.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any other questions for Susan? Thanks Susan.

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Thank you.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: It's literally

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

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: seat. Good afternoon.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's Too much things, Joe.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: I'm happy to answer questions. Think the questions before you in terms of the amendment, largely policy questions. I would say from our perspective, creating that carve out for individual sales. As a practical matter, the AG's office is not going to be prosecuting an individual in this scenario. We're going be going after large volume. When I say individual, we're not going to go after the person who bought the ticket, couldn't go, and is selling it. And they sell it 125 percent instead of 110%. And certainly not the people outside the flange

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: or Paramount or Laches or wherever they

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: are, phone calls selling tickets. That's just not generally how we're going to operate.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're gonna go after the large volume folks with consumer consumers and venues get large.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: That said, the kind of carve outs that certainly are in the first section of the amendment would make enforcement pretty challenging for us, just in terms of drawing those distinctions, figuring out how to go about an investigation,

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: and then learning it is an individual and they fit

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: in this way, that way. So it will make it less effective to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: our enforcement.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: The second piece, Second Amendment, Second section of this amendment. We have second amendment. Second session, it's coming. It's down the hall this week. Sorry, good thought. The second section of this amendment, we're neutral. Think that is completely a policy choice to make us valuable to honor contracts as they stand in place

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that makes sense to us.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Questions for Tom? Jonathan? I understand this second. In the second written value amendments, that second provision, when to honor contracts, It's not your decision for that

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: the original

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: bill that five twelve is considered now in some way doesn't honor doctors.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions? A question about, you know, fairness and looking at starting this out and allowing people to sell on FrontPorch Forum or Marketplace, but and be carved out from the 110, but then they build the ticket selling platform and then they're capped at 110. Is that

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: I mean, first and foremost, say that's an unfortunate challenge for us is when does the balance tip to being a reselling secondary market platform? Certainly becomes more important. I think when you distinct, the simplest solution is a blanket prohibition. From enforcement perspective, that's the case. From a defensibility statute perspective, that's also the case.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That thing about discrimination How's it discriminating against against another?

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Again, yeah, like a prohibition is

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: going to make that pretty straightforward.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions? Committee, do you need any more testimony? Voting on the amendment. Place for votes by Doctor. Monique Donahue.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: We can divide, though. They're divisible.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's what I need to find out. Okay. So based

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: on what Todd just said, the second part of that amendment really doesn't it's not doesn't really affect any current contracts anyway based

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

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Well, one contract. But I think he said that didn't really affect

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'm sorry.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: That's a great question, I was just thinking more about Cooper's question. So my read on the existing statute, this may

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: be a better question for Cam,

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: is it's not going be retroactive. From an enforcement perspective, we're not gonna enforce something that's in existence before the law takes effect. And I believe most of these reselling contracts, if they exist, I don't know if they do, are for existing events, right? So there's a certain timeline anyway that people aren't selling tickets. They aren't entering into these contracts. And this might be a question for Susan and the marketplace, but years out. So I think as a practical matter, it wouldn't impact those. As a legal matter, I'd have to think a little bit more about the retroactivity, which might be one of your favorite. But it's an interesting question. Again, from an enforcement perspective, and this is just me saying it, I don't think we would try and enforce against an existing contract and get into a witch law applies based in this specific example when we know it's all time.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Not that I have not a position

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to put the next two separate ones. No I mean I would agree as I mentioned in the chair I mean generally speaking it's going to apply prospectively and if I overthee of the entity enforcing it as the attorney general's office just testified if you've had contacts that are built in place then without the legislature giving specific instruction that something should apply retroactively, I wouldn't enforce against that because you potentially register issues and generally as a general statutory construction concept you all have to specifically indicate when you want laws to apply to retroactive conduct. So again I do think if you went with the C3 amendments, you were wanting to review the exclusion for those contracts so the cap would apply across the board, I don't see any issues having the proposed c3 to make it clear that it's not applying to those contracts. I don't see any harm in having it. I also don't think based on the testimony you have from the AG's office that it's absolutely necessary from a legal perspective, signaling to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the public maybe a different question.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I was gonna answer the question and I see Susan has her hand up too, but there are three venues in state that have reseller contracts ongoing right now. Susan and I spent a lot of time talking over break, so perhaps it's better to hear it from her, but it's not an event by event issue necessarily for them.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Susan?

[Susan McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yes. That's what I was gonna say actually. They're they're just to get really concrete, the one example that we're talking about in this, there's there's a few others that are actually one of them said they can't actually find who signed contracts, so it's unclear if they have one. But the one concrete example we're talking about is UVM Athletics. They signed a multi year contract with a ticketing platform as part of their contract with the platform. They have a contract, a secondary contract with a ticket reseller that is working fine for them right now. What they have said is they support the spirit of this legislation, but they're they feel like they're tied into this contract. It's like ten, I think it's like a, ten year contract maybe. Think that was part of the intent was to give some space to venues that have a system that they're either locked into or they think is working really well. I did also want to add that every single performing arts venue has said they will never sign a contract with one of these resellers because they've been so burned by working through them, and that they the one the one who does have a contract who you heard about through Cash or Trade said that they would much rather focus on a 10% price cap and get rid of their contract altogether because of how much money it's costing their business right now to work in an unregulated market. So that I think that's why we're also I know we support the idea of that was brought up by the committee, right to created with the exemption for contracts. Again, it comes back to like, if a venue wants to do this, and it's working well, and they think they're getting something for having consumers pay more than 10%, that's really not for us to say no to. The reality is no one is doing that right now, and no one has said they will in the future. So the idea to kind of that was brought forward in the amendment to say it's for existing contracts seems like a pretty elegant solution to go with what's working now, if you want to have a contract moving forward to have it aligned with the price cap. I will say higher ground has a contract with a ticket reseller. That ticket reseller already has a 10% price cap, and they are very happy with that. It works well. The reseller they work with is really committed to the 10% price cap.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Interesting. Anything else?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: But in a nutshell, section or three, regarding the contracts, doesn't has no real impact.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. And I apologize. I forgot that the amendment is changing existing language. The existing language doesn't impact, right? It's just allowing those contracts to continue. It doesn't impact that amended language would just say, this is the

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: case or change by which the contract has to be changed.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: But the original language would allow an event to enter into that contract. So if you don't have something like three, they wouldn't be allowed to do that.

[Tom (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: That's my reading. Yes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just want to clarify these, I mean they can enter into a contract with a reseller venue, so it's just the price cap would apply.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Oh, yeah. No. Tell me. But if you didn't have any both if you accepted representative management, as well as if you just didn't have three at all, that would be foreclosed for the event. The event wouldn't be able to enter into those contracts under 10% not?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They wouldn't be able to enter into a contract to authorize the sale at greater than 100. I understand.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Well, if you didn't have anything, if you didn't say anything about the contract situation, that that person, contract provider would be considered a reseller. So, I understood three, it would be It's like a ticket exchange.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's That's we required to offer tickets no more than 110%. I think for clarity, I mean, I'm willing to leave to accept represent Donahue's amendment to that, that it clarifies to the to the venues in Vermont that currently have a contract, that they can continue on with that contract if it's if it happens to be more than a 110 when it becomes when it when those contracts contracts expire and they do and if they want to contract again with a ticket reseller, that it can't be more than a for a 110%. That's the way I mean, that's way I'm seeing it.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: What are we avoiding by doing that? What it's something in perils that were

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, I don't I don't know what the current contracts that UVM may have. If they're more than a 110% on the resell, I don't know. Think it's just being cleared and cleared to the AG's office that that's that we're saying that's allowable while they have these contracts in place now. Many contracts that are signed after 07/01/2026, and they they have to follow the cap.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: You don't accept that part of the amendments, there would not be a cap for those contracts that

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That are in place.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: That are in place, but then going forward, do feel

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Going forward, they would have to follow the cap.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Without in either version of this legislation? Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thanks. I Yes. It's just it just clear I mean, the amendment clarifies that what's existing is is okay right now. Anything else? We take a five minute break. I will go and have a conversation with the clerk to make sure we how we look at this if we're going to divide this amendment into two and have two votes. I think that's probably the way it will go.