Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: This is updated. This is from last week. Gonna find it updated. I put you on out, but here's Where have I put it?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It's this. So I'll put you on. Okay. We'll be right.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. We're live. Welcome. Welcome, everybody, back to Southern Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. And where is the where is the agenda? I need ah, here we are. So this morning, we are turning from all the things we've been focused on in the last couple days to a bill that we walked through last week, and we are turning our attention to another consumer protection piece in our jurisdictional portfolio, s h five twelve, the an act relating to the regulation of events ticketing, the event ticketing market. And that we walked through it last week, I think, with who's the legislature council on this? Cameron. Cameron. That's right. We walked through it last week with Cameron. And this morning, we're actually gonna turn the bill itself and start speaking with the advocates and the nonadvocates to look in a very full and thoughtful way at this challenge that we need to address. So we are gonna welcome thank you. Susan Susan Evans McClure, our incredible director of the Rutland Arts Council, to the table to join us to tee it up.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Morning, everyone. Good morning. Now do you know all us here? Yes. You do. Yeah. Okay. Great. Let me share screen on the Zoom. Yes. If you just ask oh, sorry. I have to send you a request. Yeah. And then yeah. Okay. Great. There you go. Okay. So soon as well. Good morning, everyone. For the record, I'm Susan Evan Saplore. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. We're the state's arts agency. So our role is to ensure that all Vermonters have access to the arts in their lives, education, communities. We worked hard to put the arts at the center of economic development and community development. And just a big thank you for seeing the power of the creative sector over the years. And for the great art on the wall. We live

[Speaker 0]: with the creative economy. In this room, everything here is for sale. And in senate government options. Sorry.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: You're the trouble. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Sure. Let

[Speaker 0]: me clarify. The black and people in

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: this room are for sale, but certainly the art is.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Definitely to the artists as well. We no one here will be getting a cut of anything. So I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today about a significant issue that has been impacting Vermont arts venues, Vermont sports venues, and Vermont consumer for several years. So as many of you all of you know because I have seen you at many of these events, live events are really the heartbeat of Vermont's creative economy and our local communities. But these creditworthy and deceptive ticket resale practices from fake websites to scam tickets to inflated prices are negatively affecting both Vermont consumers and Vermont performing arts industry. Vermonters really deserve and are asking for common sense guardrails for ticket resale that will protect consumers, small businesses, and our economy. And that is exactly what h five one two is working to do. So the Vermont Arts Council has been working with a coalition of Vermont arts and sports venues. You see all of the logos up here. I will say there are few things in Vermont that I've seen that unite people as much as a desire to have access to a fair ticketing market. What we're seeing in this market is truly egregious. Consumers who search for tickets online are being brought to websites that look just like the website of the real venue, and then they buy tickets through a grossly inflated prices. Online resellers are selling tickets that don't even exist yet. So those people don't have that ticket before they resell it, or they're selling tickets that are fake. And then consumers get to the venue only to find that their tickets aren't real and they've been stammed. You're gonna hear today from the Flynn as well, but I could tell you I could take up this whole time telling you issues of venues of prophecy. From someone paying $50 for a $15 Lake Monsters tickets to a grandmother paying a huge sum of money for a fake ticket to see her granddaughter at the nutcracker at the Paramount, and then arriving and finding out that she didn't have a ticket and couldn't see her granddaughter in the Nutcracker. So tickets were a benefit for immigrants in Vermont being resold for extremely high prices. And what we see is that the majority of people reselling tickets on the secondary market are professional individuals. Industry estimates around 80% of resell is done by professional individual resellers. Individuals buy a ticket from a venue, and then the individual sells that ticket on a secondary reseller market. They're doing this because they know they can make money off of an unregulated market. And I think it's helpful to see what we're talking about in terms of real numbers and impact. So I wanna share one specific example. This data was pulled by the National Independent Talent Association organization. Sorry. They pulled together some data about a 2023 concert. There were actually two concerts by the same artist named Billy Strings at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds in Athens, the Champlain Valley Expo. And the numbers they pulled were that 493 tickets were resold to this event.

[Speaker 0]: Out of how many how many tickets were there?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That's a good question. I can find out the answer.

[Speaker 0]: Because that will mean something in only in relation

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: to Well, the numbers later are also important in terms of the amount of money. So it was five 493 tickets. The average face value of that ticket was $55. The average resell price was a $188. And that means that Vermont's fans paid an extra over $65,000 in retail cost than they would have. This money is not going to Vermont venues. It's not going to Vermont artists. It's going to predatory resellers and predatory resell platforms.

[Speaker 0]: These have Vermonters do not have an extra 65,000.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: No, they do not. No, they do not. That's it. And this is actually a low volume number that NEETO only had access to about 60% of state data from StuffHub. So this does not account for resell on other platforms that you'll hear about today too. So really, our intent with this bill is to create a Vermont scale solution to a Vermont scale problem. I do think it's important to note that we are one of only a few trades with Bill Ticketmaster or Live Nation venues. You may have been following in the national news about Ticketmaster a court case about Ticketmaster and all of the complications around that. There are major complications with Ticketmaster's business model, but that is not what you've asked me here to talk about, and that is not the particular problem that we're trying to solve here in Vermont. We also do not wanna break what is a solution, and the House Commerce Committee has spent a lot of time crafting a bill that really addresses the specific issues, protects consumers, and still allows for transparency and choice through with venues. So I wanted to talk about a few specifics of the bill and use some examples to see why we wanna do this and what's happening. So the first is the first piece of the bill is a prohibition on speculative ticket sales. So what we often see are tickets for sale on the resale market before they are available for sale on the venue. So that means that someone has gone to a resale market and said, hey. Buy my ticket to this, but they don't have that ticket in their possession yet. Maybe later, they'll get that ticket in their possession, and it's a real ticket. Maybe not. We don't know. So an example of this actually is a summer concert that in Burlington, the waterfront that Higher Ground was putting on. The band was called The Head and the Heart. Tickets went on sale through Higher Ground on March 11. On March 10, StubHub sent out an email saying tickets were available now, and you could buy them on StubHub now. I will say this email was forwarded to me by the owner of Higher Ground as well. So he was able to verify that, no, tickets were not for sale. In fact, they were going on sale the next day. So this ban on speculative ticket sales remit this practice on

[Speaker 0]: a lot of not a lot.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: The other piece of the website is a ban on deceptive. Sorry. The other piece of the bill is a ban on deceptive websites and deceptive language. The bill would make it unlawful to use deceptive practices that make it look like they're on a website of the primary ticket venue, and it outlaws practices like you see here. This, pulled yesterday from StuffHub, and it's a resell the resell market for these same tickets to the head and the heart. And it says that ticket there's only 3%

[Speaker 0]: of ticket left at the top.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That is not true, as you can see by Ground still selling tickets, many of which are available. The tickets are for sale on Higher Ground's website here for 6 to $10. As you can see on StuffHub, they're for sale for anywhere from $111 to over $1,000.

[Speaker 0]: And I assume you are gonna send this presentation to Kiara as soon as you've forgotten. Right?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Don't worry. Don't worry. Jonathan, this is great. The other the piece of this also that we think is important is draining enforcement of this under existing consumer protection law. The attorney general's office has been supportive of this legislation throughout the process. And what would happen is that venues and consumer venues when a consumer comes to a venue and they come with a big ticket or they've been scammed, right now, the only person they have to complain to is the venue. And the venue often cuts can say, I we can't do anything about this. I will say I've heard a lot of stories from Vermont venues trying to make it right because that's what we do. We try to make great experiences for the public. But in this in this case, with the with the bill, venues will be able to direct consumers to the attorney general's consumer consumer assistance programs to file a complaint, and violations can be fined out to $10,000. They could

[Speaker 0]: have done that before. Actually, any individual can can file a complaint with the consumer protections. They can.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: And The division of the AG's office. Just saying if you're listening out there. And what we're hearing from people, though, is they're embarrassed when this happens. No one's who wants to come forward Yeah. With the Exactly. So I think it'll be a really we know it'll be a really different message to consumers when the venue can say to them, this is illegal. This is not your fault. Here's exactly what to do. Then we know that will also help the consumer understand this is an event that the venue's fault. There's also a provision in here for a 10% price cap on resell with an exemption for transparent contracted markets. And while the bill covers a lot of important issues that will measurably improve the situation for consumers and venues, The real heart of this bill is a price cap on the secondary resale market. And while we know we know that no bill can solve every challenge of our modern Internet age, we also know that price cap will have the most impact in ending the incentives for predatory online practices, namely selling tickets for grossly inflated prices and tricking Vermont consumers into purchasing them. Price are a crucial part of the market working effectively and protecting consumers. Price caps do not set the price of the original ticket. That is totally up to the venue. Price caps only regulate abusive abusive resell markups that have no relationship to real demand. Markets only work when they're free of fraud and manipulation, and price caps simply prevent the thing that is destroying competition. So last year, Maine passed a state law capping the price on resale at 10% above what was paid for the ticket. Our colleagues in Maine have shared that this legislation has had a meaningful impact on decreasing the problem. 10% was the amount that was determined because the the coverage of the original cost of the ticket for the consumer and any fees that might be incurred. We know that things come up. People can't go to things. Intent is not to end resell, actually, or not to end resell or not to make it impossible to resell your ticket. We want people to have access to resell markets that are transparent, fair, they know what they're getting into. In The United States, right now, Maine is the only state with price cap laws. However, there is state legislation in around 15 states that includes price caps and regulating the the market right now. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: I thought Maryland had just passed one. They did have

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: a ticket law that has a lot of this in there. It does not include a price cap. They are going back in recovering first to high up

[Speaker 0]: and They're readdressing that this year. Sorry.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I mean, I hate to jump in when I was

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: not here, but can you talk a little bit more about pain when you say it solved the problem? Like, what what is their experience? That is such a complicated thing to do.

[Speaker 0]: And without Megan come and testify too.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yeah. They would and they've been very open and said they would love to do that. What Megan is that so what we're seeing is actually that the ticket resellers are highly organized. There are actually there are actually lists that say the best states to do business in, those are states that have no regulations at all. So what happens is if you get your state off that list, it takes away the incentive for predatory resellers to make market, make money there, and then they just kinda don't do it. We're a really small market in Vermont. Our intent with this is to have strong legislation that ensures that we are not on the list of states that people want to go to.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. So I'm asking because and I just bought tickets to Modest Mouse last night, which I'm very excited about. Thank God, Shelburne Music. Like, I live next to a place where I can get World Plat concerts in a field with my children. I have had the experience of trying to buy tickets to the big shows. Right? The the like, Montreal, Olivia Rodrigo, you know, trying to see Taylor Swift in Boston. I don't think Vermont and Maine will necessarily see those kinds of shows unless we build a big Which will work? Yeah. But but in the meantime, the the challenge is even to get the tickets that's at the starting price, you have to, like, spend a day refreshing an American Express, like, VIP ticket room or whatever if you can. The the challenge is whatever price it's set at, it's it's like Disneyland. It's a it's a limited in person market. So they're trying to manage, like, access and experience with the fact that people will pay a very high amount to to for an exclusive opportunity that is is is capacity limited. So I I don't know that Maine can tell us what happens when you say, okay. Well, you know, you didn't get in the you you didn't refresh fast enough for this Taylor Swift concert in Boston. So now you're in the market of tickets that are available for a higher price. I totally agree about the challenges of Ticketmaster. We don't we don't have

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: a Ticketmaster venue in our state.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right. Right.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So that if there was national legislation about that, this Mhmm. That would be a really important part of it to figure out and really dig into. The intent here that we're hearing from Vermont venues at Vermont consumers is how do we solve this problem in Vermont?

[Speaker 0]: Okay. And we're gonna let you we have very short time, and I know we have two people who fluff coming in from out of state. So I wanna make be thoughtful about their time.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Quick point. The previous slide, a quick question for me is on the 10% above face value. So I recently bought some tickets to see Nick Offerman at the Flynn. And I'm looking at my tickets right now, and it was $142.75 per ticket, and then $63.78 in taxes and fees. That's 18% markup. So would I be capped at the ticket price, or can I recoup the service and fees? And then if they're resale again, can they just capture that 10% again, compounding it kind of so you can if you can go above what fees you paid to any vendor, it is a structural problem for me is how that 10% cap would actually work.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So the way the bill was written out for me out of cost numbers is that it includes the total amount you paid.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: So you To the venue.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: To the venue the first time. And then when you resell it, it can be listed for a 110% total the second time.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Right. And then a 110% on top of that is listed? I would theoretically, yes. A 110% on top of that.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: We have not seen I mean, yeah. I guess, theoretically, yes. That would be true.

[Speaker 0]: We just lost your presentation.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That's okay. Would still have those lines. I told 50 more things to add. Right.

[Speaker 0]: But you were gonna show us the global what globally has been done on that. And I think just before we go further with your testimony, it'd be interesting to see the global what other countries have done.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So there is I also wanna emphasize that price caps and regulations on this market are the industry standard globally. Countries are not adopting these resell price caps in theory. They're really adopting them after fans are repeatedly priced out, scammed

[Speaker 0]: Right.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: And exploited. And when you make it illegal to sell a ticket for a grossly inflated click price, you really remove the incentive for these bad actors to scam Vermonters. It's not the original experience, which I agree is not ideal. We've I've refreshed a lot of websites. It's not ideal. But that doesn't happen in the same way in Vermont because of our scale. What we're talking about is the secondary market when people resell those tickets. I'll also add that all of these things aside and the importance of price caps, our intent here is not to break what is not broken. The intent is to increase transparency and choice for consumers. The house community created a program and a bill on the bill for venues that have signed contracts with a reseller. This means that if a venue has a signed contract with a reseller and they're transparent about a safe marketplace, they are exempted from the first half. The example of that here is UVM Athletics. UVM Athletics sells their tickets through a company called Packiolin. Packiolin got the contract with Seeking. That is working for them. If you are a season ticket holder to UVM Athletics you say, can't go to this game. You click you say resell my ticket. It all works. UVM athletics knows what's happening. It's really there's a fair market. It's transparent. That's working for them. The house committee brought up that idea. That was their work in that to really have some balance to us too to make sure that we're allowing values to do what works for them. Do we

[Speaker 0]: know what percent of their tickets are sold on that market?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: It is it is small. Yeah. It's not a lot.

[Speaker 0]: So most tickets at UBM are sold straight through the UBM side. Exactly. Yeah. The

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: other thing that I think is worth if

[Speaker 0]: I can

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: stop here. Okay.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: The other thing that is worth noting for a Vermont example here is that Vermont already regulate predatory markets like this. The Rent A Center regulations from about ten years ago, they set the maximum price that or an item that could be sold in a rent to own agreement. So there is precedent in Vermont for capping prices. And, actually, many states used to have price cap legislation, and that legislation advance on scalping. Many of states have repealed those. The timing of these repeals actually aligns with the growth and consolidation of the resale ticket market and the professionalization of lobbying efforts by the industry to undermine these common sense regulations. And since those price caps have been repealed, this issue has become worse and worse for consumers. Actually, in Ontario, I can see a really current and fascinating example. Ontario used to have a 50% price cap. That was their what they decided to do.

[Speaker 0]: 15 or 15? 15. Five o.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: They got rid of the price cap completely. The government got rid of the price cap. The issue became so bad that now they've brought as of last week, they announced they have brought a price cap back and only a face value price cap.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: So the tax fees.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: They're still working on the tax split fees part, but it'll be it is even more stringent than it started at because it

[Speaker 0]: the project was so broken. So does

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Quebec have? I

[Speaker 0]: don't think so. So it's each province of So it's just like we're doing it state by state. They're doing it province by province.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Mhmm. Actually, I will have I don't know that for sure all of

[Speaker 0]: the time. And, Susan, we need We're we can

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: have you back. I have copy of the food today. From out of state. Alright. So I am happy to take more questions. We really appreciate your attention to this. It is this is an issue that consumers are asking for, and vendors are asking for, and really our role here and our role at the arts council is to protect and support our creative economy that's working in our state, and we need to have regulations on this to do that. Thank you.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Quick, let's go.

[Speaker 0]: Yes, Tom.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: I just want say we absolutely need to do this bill. The predatory, this do you call it, speculative pricing. This is just it's not right. It doesn't feel right. I just have a lot of questions about that 10% thing, so that's where I'm gonna be coming at it. But I definitely support this bill moving it forward because I I I think I might have gotten ripped off once. I'm gonna go back and look through my Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Watch out. Rip off Tom Chittenden. You're indeed. Thank you, Susan. It's just a great tee up, and we will have you back. Remember Thank you. To everybody, we're just starting our work on this bill, and we have well, the tenant doesn't have endless amount of time to devote to sadly the number of bills we have, we will be back to this fairly soon. David, welcome back to our committee. It's good to have you back. If you have you met everybody in our I believe so. David, therapy would with Stuff Introduce yourself and go for the gospel. Perfect. Madam Jeff, thanks for the invitation. Before I I kinda get into the bill itself, maybe a little background on on Stuff Up

[David (StubHub representative)]: for those who might not be familiar.

[Speaker 0]: We were born a little over twenty five years ago over fan frustration. Our founder went to wants to go to a sold out show, The The Lion King on on Broadway, and the the experience he had trying to buy those tickets was uncomfortable, was unsettling, and you didn't know if you're getting a real ticket or not, and there were no consumer protections, no customer service, no refunds if something went wrong. And when he thought about it on the flip side, you buy tickets often two, three, four months in advance. You find out your cousin's getting married. Life happens. You can't make the show. And really what that is is it's a local issue. Right? You can you can only you have to go to family, friends, coworkers to try to sell those those tickets. And, you know, I look at my experience growing up in Maine, similar to a lot of provokers. Right? You buy Red Sox tickets and you see it might be a rain delay, you don't wanna go down to Boston, you know, it's hard to find those someone to find those sell those find those tickets. So what our founder essentially created was a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers, similar to an Etsy or or an eBay, but specific for tickets. Right? We don't own tickets. We don't we don't set prices. And so what he also did is he injected a fan protect guarantee into that. So when you buy tickets from Stuff Up and something if something goes wrong with in the rare cases that something goes wrong, you either get similar or better tickets, or you can get a refund, which could either be a credit back to Stuff Up or or your cash back. So we took something that was consumer unfriendly and made it consumer consumer friendly and and and put consumer protections to it. As it relates to Vermont Vermont specifically, we have about 6,000 users. Last year, over a thousand people sold tickets on our site. And when you look at Vermont events specifically, 51% of buyers come from out of state. So we are giving access to local Vermonters, but people from out of state are also Sorry. Of the 6,000, you could tell us that 51% of those are people who came from out of state to No. Sorry. Sorry. So 6,000 people in Vermont

[David (StubHub representative)]: Used Used our website.

[Speaker 0]: So they might they might be buying a ticket to in Massachusetts or or Montreal or New York. Right? So all over it. All over the world. 6,000 people from Vermont. Bought tickets on StubHub. Bought or sold tickets on StubHub. 1,000 people last year in Vermont sold tickets on StubHub. So, okay, as I said, life changed. Sold tickets on StubHub. They live in Vermont. Now when you look at Vermont specific events, events that are taking place in Vermont and the people who bought those tickets, 51% are from out of state. So That's staggering. So that is people who are coming into the state. Either they're coming to state for the show, so Goose is a perfect example. They're a national jam band, national following. People will buy those tickets and come here for that. Or and that number is higher, by the way. If you look at Killington, you look at Stowe, you look at Burlington, a little higher in the tourist areas, not surprisingly. Oh, if you're including yes. Because my head is stuck in event in in performance events, but this could is this also applied to the ski industry? Any any any live event live event. Oh, any well, some for some people, skiing is a live event. Fair fair enough. But not so not not recreation. No. Not tickets. We sell tickets to live live events. So Okay. Got it. Concerts, sporting events, things of that that nature. So and by the way, the luck of their in in state, and they're looking for something to do, and they go to Step Up to see where where gigs may be available. Two quick things on Step Up, then I'll get to the build. Think they're important, one on access and and one on fraud. 90% of our 90% of events in North America have a ticket available under a $100. Over 60% have a ticket available under $50. And fraud is very rare on our site.

[David (StubHub representative)]: Again, when we look at North America,

[Speaker 0]: 0.2%, again, 0.2% of borders have any problem at war on on our site. And that's because we do a lot of work on the front end to kinda protect against fraud. As it relates to the bill itself, I think I'll follow-up with what the senator said. We I think we'll probably spend some time talking about where we disagree, but I think on the front end, it's important to talk about where we agree. We think there are strong consumer connections in this bill. The ban on speculative tickets, the ban on deceptive websites, those are real problems and deserve real solutions, and we support those provisions. We'd actually support additional consumer protections being added to the bill. They have requirements for requirements for all in pricing, mandatory refunds for secondary markets. There's a number of things that other states have done that we think are strong consumer protections that that could be added. Feel free to email that to us. Yeah. Absolutely great. Happy to. And then was it our challenge to not surprise anything is around price gaps. Right? Not you're I've said it on on I can I can see your shot? Was it not because we don't wanna make tickets more affordable, everyone wants to do that, but price gaps just don't work the way people intend them to do. One, there's a number of studies that show that they don't lower costs. They are proven to lower costs. And two, what they do is they take they don't eliminate the market. They move the market. And what I mean by that is instead of being available on a safe, transparent, regulated platform like StubHub, the tickets then move to unregulated, unsafe channels like social media, like Facebook Marketplace, like TikTok, like Instagram. And You have evidence for that in Maine. In in Maine? You've had this operation in Maine. So you have the caps Well, we don't know. Actually have evidence that it's actually So migrated. Yes. We do. And so I'd say a couple of things. One on Maine specifically, there was a lot of confusion when that debate was going through, whether it was a fee cap or a price cap. People weren't sure which one it was. The attorney general has come out and said that that bill is actually a fee cap, not a price cap. It was it's on the website. I'm happy to provide it to the committee. And so to say that Maine is working, I don't know how because the AG says it's not a price cap. It's a fee gap. As far as evidence that we've seen, we've seen it in a lot of different places. I think Ireland came up. I think that's a really good example. Right? Again, what happened was kind of predictable. 2021, they put in their price caps. If it became harder to find on the regulated market, like like, stuff up, they shifted to private channels and social media, and fraud increased. Right? And just in 2024 and '25, you can see the Irish police, the Bank of Ireland, the Allied Irish Bank, and, Revolut, which is now, like, a Venmo, in in Ireland, all come out with warnings about ticketing scams that have increased due to that that. Got And and one thing I'd say just for domestic, just two weeks ago, and I'm happy to send the article to the committee, in in Charlotte, there was an article of dozens of people that got scammed on social media thinking they were buying VIP passes. In that case, the seller had them use Cash App and Venmo to make them feel comfortable that this was a legit thing. And then they showed up to the concert, dozens of people were scammed and dumped. And by the way, unlike a Step Up, where something goes wrong, there's refunds and there's there's, like, customer service you can call. They were completely scammed. But would doesn't have a price tag. Correct. What I argue though is that's where that exists now. If you eliminate the regulated market, more of that is gonna go. Because from a fan perspective, if I can't sell if a fan can't sell their ticket at the market rate, they're not going to give up. They're going to sell their tickets. If I buy a $100 ticket, it's staffed at a $110, and I can't sell a $110 on StubHub, then I'll go on Facebook Marketplace or TikTok and try to send it for $150 because that's the market is still there. It depends on what your objective was in buying a ticket in the first place. If your if your objective was to actually just see the performance and you're not a speculative. But it's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: really hard to tell on Facebook Marketplace. I mean, my nanny got scammed out of $400.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. And I think listen. I think people you know, 99% of people that sell on SubHub are individuals. Right? And I've had it happen where I got tickets to a show, babysitter cancels on me two days before, I resell, let's call it a $100 ticket for 50 or $75 to recoup my money. But maybe I bought a ticket to a sold up show that has high demand. Why would I sell it at 75 if I can get a 125

[David (StubHub representative)]: more? Right? There's people

[Speaker 0]: Because I care about your other provider. I should like, wanna buy that 50. Yeah. Thomas.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Few questions. So I think it's just you're saying 99% are individuals, but that last is that just the number of sellers versus how what percentage of the actual tickets are Yeah. Really, 99 by individual sellers and not, like, a couple of big actors that are selling.

[Speaker 0]: Quick. 99% of sellers Yeah. Are individuals.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: And then of the tickets sold, how many of them are from repeats and resellers? I'm expecting that there's a few active Yes. Few resellers that are making up a big volume of activity.

[Speaker 0]: There's certainly especially when you look nationally. So for example, baseball is a perfect example. Right? A baseball team, again, is not because I use a national stat. I know this doesn't apply to Vermont, but just for comparison. But I thought you said Is there a tickets weren't part of this.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Of course, tickets.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Live event. Yeah. But so scheme. I mean, so so this is all all only events Yes. Opposed to, okay. Yeah. Baseball. Right. We we So when I say 90% of sellers nationally. Right?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: The volume of tickets. What percent of tickets are sold by resellers that are individuals that are just doing this a lot versus individuals?

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: As a profession.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: I'm guessing there's a couple of high volume

[Speaker 0]: Yes. There are so yes. Exact. There there are so baseball again, I was saying, for example, a baseball team may look at a professional broker and say, know what? We're gonna sell you 200 tickets

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: To every baseball game. Okay. To manage their inventory. So that's why the national number of But that would be a venue that has a contract with a a a secondary seller. Right. We would So that is like UVM. That would that's not what we're talk yeah. Right. We're accepting it.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Secondly, so Uber, when it first came online was a platform. So there was a StubHub, and there were lots of issues where they weren't qualifying drivers and validating Right. Drive. What do you do to make sure these sellers aren't acting maliciously, which will tie to my third question, which I was kinda misleading. 3% of tickets left, selling for twice as much when it's available on the venue. I don't think that aligns with how you opened up the origin story of StubHub. He did have a good experience buying from the lines above. I I gotta say that that makes me feel picky.

[Speaker 0]: I totally understand. So I think when we say 3% of tickets, no different than if Walmart says there's only 10 left. It doesn't mean there's not a 100 of that same product at Target. Right? That being said, we appreciate no. We appreciate the concerns. I think that's addressed the the house changed the bill to address that. No objections. No objections there. David, I have to ask you because we have another person who've come who's coming at from out of state. Brian, I believe you'd come in from out of state. So we and we only have a few more minutes on this because we have to deal with amendments. Yes. The last thing I would just note, one thing that's been proven is that price gaps are obviously unenforceable, and the reason being we can't validate the original purchase price and neither can the state. Right? A perfect example, UVM, if you purchase a ticket, I did, the ticket price isn't on the ticket. So if you're gonna put a price gap about a 110 percent, you naturally need to know what the base price is. I have never bought a ticket where the price wasn't on the ticket. I've purchased a UVA ticket. I'm happy to provide that to the committee as And so and by the way, that's not unique. This happened in in Connecticut, and Yukon specified that their ticket provider doesn't isn't able to put the ticket priced on there. So perhaps that will be in good proof happen. The prices will be on some tickets. And

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: how do you qualify sellers? How do you validate that they're individuals that are of honorable intent?

[Speaker 0]: So couple things. One, we do a lot of fraud protection on the on the front end via technology. Right? If you suddenly never sold a ticket and you're putting a 100 tickets on, that would raise fraud alert from a technology standpoint. The other thing we do, even just like little things, you if you sell the ticket, you don't get paid until the buyer gets into the shell. So things like that create a disincentive.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: You don't get that in the dark market.

[Speaker 0]: Exactly. So we hold we don't hold the money, and once you

[David (StubHub representative)]: get in, then you'll get it.

[Speaker 0]: I buy the ticket from you. Yep. If I

[David (StubHub representative)]: don't get in, you don't get

[Speaker 0]: your money, and we'll we'll charge you up to two x the cost of the ticket as a penalty. And if it's egregious, we'll ban you from our website. Right. David, would you be kind enough to send your testimony to us Yes. To Kara, and then we will all And happy to provide the the main AG

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Post as as well.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Alright. Absolutely. I think that's the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: stuff. We don't have a way to do, like, a lecture segment for legislators. We're behind paywalls, but it's, like, more than perils,

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: and

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I can't read the article. Yes. That would

[Speaker 0]: be great if you could send the printed out article with not just a link because the payrolls are a challenge. That would be good. That's from the attorney general's website. So I will

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: show you the I know I have the I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: really wanna read the article to them.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thought we had a surface.

[Speaker 0]: So, David, yeah, well, let's take that up with blood counts. Thank you very much. Send your testimony, if you would, to Kiara Absolutely. And Brian. He's a blend too.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Sorry. What? The Flynn was on the schedule to open

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: It is. I can do it very quickly.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: There's certain points that haven't been raised

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: in the way that I

[Speaker 0]: think We are real tough here, but we may have to have you back. Let's just see how we go. Alright. Right. So sorry. It's a it's a tough day. We have judicial retention at 10:30, which means normally we have three hours. Today we have an hour and a half. I understand. We would I hate to yeah. Anyway, welcome. Introduce yourself. Good morning. Right.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: I'm Brian Barry. I'm the executive director of the Ticket and Policy at Newark. We are an association of ticket marketplaces. I should note and clarify Ticketmaster. Live Nation is not a member of our association. We compete with Live Nation Ticketmaster. We have six companies that are members of our group. There may be many, many websites and companies out there selling tickets, but I'll tell you the six that are members of our association. They're professional ticketing companies. They only sell tickets. SEVUP, who you heard from, Sikki, Vivid Seats, TickDick, Gametime, and Event Ticket Center. Like I said, they only do one thing, that is sell tickets. And I should also note that there's been an evolution in the market where they're not just resale marketplaces. You heard a little bit about UVM and their work with our member, SeaKey. SeaKey is also a company that

[Speaker 0]: Yes. Can find

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: their name on the side of buildings because they they're trying, as as was evident in the trial in the subdivision of New York, trying very difficult and having a hard time to compete head to head. Subba, the ERCOT, you know, works directly with venues as well so that venues can list their tickets directly on its platform at the prices the venue sent. So it's not just a situation where a ticket holder decides what their sum of their tickets were. So very gray is the best way. I've been in the industry for ten years. It's been very gray because How long is your association based? We launched in 2025.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, so you're very new.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: We're new as a as a association of the of the marketplaces. I've worked with Facebook Baseball. We've worked with the Broadway producers. I've worked with another ticketing marketplace, you know, before it's going into the industry overall. David hit most of the points, but I would note that a there lot of good senators, which I thank you for raising that point as well. It's a lot of good in this bill for a variety of reasons. Number one, it's equitable. It applies to everyone. The rules that you set here will apply to every company that chooses to sell the Arcelor. If there are things about the way that a offer is being listed on a website that you don't like, that can be cleaned up. So there's enhanced disclosures that the House added. There may be additional disclosures that this committee adds, but, you know, that that, I think, will go a long way in terms of informing the consumer who they're buying from. There are many consumers out there we have found. Our industry sells approximately hundreds of millimeter tickets here in The United States. It's a it's it's it's twenty six years since Stuff Up first started and other companies came onto the scene. It's the only thing we do is fill seats. At the end of the day, an FTC is not a seat where an individual is purchasing merchandise, purchasing food and beverage. It's a good thing with seats.

[Speaker 0]: No producer wants to see an empty seat.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: No one wants to see

[David (StubHub representative)]: Happy dinner.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: An empty seat. Yes. Yes. So so there's a lot of good in that bill, you know, from the perspective of speculative ban. As you heard from the arts council, some of what was shown on screen will go away as a result of that. Some enhanced disclosures, you know, will go away. There's also some deceptive websites that will fall under this and ideally go away. I should note that I mentioned six companies that we work with. We are the vast majority of the industry. There may be hundreds and hundreds of companies out there, if you call them a company, a website that is pretending to be a venue. Our belief is very simple. If you have to pretend to be someone you are not when you're selling something, you should not be selling something and nor should people be buying from you. Don't pretend to be the venue. You know? If if there's no blend, buy from the blend. If want it in parachute shop, which we tell people if they should, they should. As for some states, Maine was already discussed. The attorney general in Maine has clarified this is a fee cap, not a price cap. Madam Chair, you asked about Maryland. I testified there. That price cap is not advancing. They passed a very strong bill just two It's years in

[Speaker 0]: the process now that they were working on this stuff. It's been shown.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: Massachusetts, only two years ago, revealed its price cap. This year, Wisconsin, Washington State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New Mexico, West Virginia have looked at this and turned the other direction, instead looking at other reforms that will improve the market without necessarily affecting competition in the market. Connecticut has a bill right now. They've removed the price cap from it. New Hampshire, only two years ago, looked at the comprehensive ticketing bill, removed price caps from it before the bill opened it even further. So regionally, that is the trend. Across the country, that is the trend. The unenforceability is a serious issue here. We have no ability to know, for the most part, what the price was that was paid originally. So to require regulated platforms to not allow a ticket to be sold with more than 110%, well, we don't know what that 110% is. We hope we can

[Speaker 0]: work with you. Hopefully, there'll be a migration to actually create the price.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: There used to be. Yeah. When I first came into the industry

[Speaker 0]: Every on equipment was on everything. But Right.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: It doesn't include tax and fees. Right. My tickets for Nick Offerman, and that's an 18% markup on tickets and convenience. That's not gonna show on the tickets. I think that's your point. Right?

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: That's if any of the pricing. And the other thing too is it's betting my bank. I think, you know, our our advice always is law should be future proofing as well, and we don't know what the future of of events in Vermont might be. You may have a a large summer amphitheater at some point. You know, this case that's going on with Live Nation Ticketmaster is one that your attorney general is involved in Right. And is and is suing to keep the monopoly at bay. I would say, you know, around Vermont, Live Nation Ticketmaster has made incredible advances. They work with venues to price tickets dynamically. So while some venues may put a ticket on sale for $50, it is always $50. There are many on the other hands that are capable of changing that price by hour, like an Uber, depending on the demand.

[Speaker 0]: This insidious surveillance price Dynamic pricing. We're looking at it in another bill, and we'll be looking at it next year in legislation.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: And and and that, madam chair, is why a third point I would make. There's a there's a consequence concern we have, which is pushing into fraudulent markets. Those shady, scamming websites steal business from us too, just like the venue box office. Every ticket that is sold on our marketplaces is a ticket that has already been purchased. Please remember that, that this is a ticket that has been bought and paid for. The speculative ban will deal with tickets that haven't been bought and paid for. Right? So these are good things. So tickets sold will be within constructive possession, either purchased and in hand, or there's a contract awaiting delivery of those tickets. But what where this price cap additionally has its law is it's it's lopsided. So there's nothing to prevent a venue, not suggesting that Flynn does this, but a venue, generally speaking, from continuing to raise their prices but only capping the price on the resell market. So while a $50 ticket today could not be sold more than a 110%, the venue, the very same day, could double the price because demand is strong. So still, Vermonters will still have the potential to face higher prices. So there this won't solve to do that. I mean, just legislate. Right? I I hear you. That's a business decision, but but it does happen in in you know, throughout the market. There's the ability to change price. Therefore, there's no guarantee that the Vermonter would receive it at only a 110%. So so we do worry about the fraud and then also the compliance.

[Speaker 0]: There's just this mechanism right now. So we need to work on enforcement compliance Enforcement compliance. I'd love to work on globally at how the price cap is working because all you've mentioned I mean, we did have a brief mention of ours, it would be interesting to see globally how the price cap

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: And other states because where it has been studied in The United States, the National Hockey League is a good example. Ah, yes. They are. They studied this. There was no meaningful reduction in cost, so they didn't see the reduction. That was a three year study. They didn't see a reduction in the cost of tickets. They said they saw increased fraud. This is real. You you talked about scams this morning, so I don't even tell you what those look like, but people fall for it all the time. Those are not real tickets. Those are not real ticketing companies, nor do they provide guarantees and protection.

[Speaker 0]: Brian, thank you. Thank you very much. And if you'd be kind enough to submit your testimony also to Kira, that would be great. I'll I'll to that. Can I make sure I understand? Yeah. Actually, Kesha. And then we're gonna go to Kevin briefly.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I apologize. So regardless of of where we go with the cow, the piece about having a relationship between the venue and some of these websites, does that solve a lot of your members' issues that they would be the wet bite of repute or whatever?

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: No. I understand what you mean.

[Speaker 0]: The trusted okay, exactly. Seller of record.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: Yeah. Seller of record. I mean, that is that is UBM's approach. UBM has the capability to work with anyone they wanna work with.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Mhmm.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: By the way, venues oftentimes, again, perhaps not with a with a plan, will be oftentimes facing exclusive contracts where they can only work with some providers and not others. That can be a problem for our members because then they

[Speaker 0]: are precluded even with legislation working with a But perhaps integrity requires exclusion at some point if you are limiting yours and what you would wanna fight for is being that secondary seller. And we're talking a lot about the buyer, madam chair. We also have to think of

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: the seller. We've learned over twenty six years that the trade off for safety when it comes to ticket resell is allowing the seller of a ticket to to set the price of their ticket. Right. You know, if I have a home that I can fetch a lot more money for, I might do it, but I still wanna do it through a realtor, make sure it's registered with the county, I'm paying all

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: the taxes and fees.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: Oftentimes, these ticket sellers will go elsewhere

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Thank

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: if they can't do it on our plan.

[Speaker 0]: Got it. Yeah. Got it. Thank you

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: very much.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: Well, thank you very much.

[Speaker 0]: Really appreciate. And if we need to again, we'll Zoom you in.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: For sure.

[Speaker 0]: Thank appreciate your TSA your TSA approach.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: I shouldn't have any problems with TSA.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. No. And he's he's right. I I had a really hard time figuring out my nanny couldn't get her visa to go to Canada to see a show with me. So I had to, like, have to vent far and wide to find a friend to come because I I couldn't figure out how to how to buy

[Speaker 0]: We need to be able to

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: was gonna stand outside and be like, somebody supposed to see the show.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Have a friend that came with me.

[Speaker 0]: K. Join us just for a second. Adult Ed, we have to wait for a minute.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: I mean, I appreciate that.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. No. We're we're great.

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: And we live close enough, and

[Speaker 0]: we work close enough so that we

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: can I do?

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: But I'm also planning two weeks away. So this and I had a bunch of other things.

[Speaker 0]: Thank think you very much for joining.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: Can you just throw up

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: the the So

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: we've already discussed

[Speaker 0]: Introduce yourself.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: Kevin Sweeney, I'm the director of sales and marketing at Beth Flynn. I am an eighteen year veteran of marketing. Think it's Right. So we all know that tickets are purchased by individuals. Recently, this has become such a profitable industry that there are actually call centers being set up, purchasing tickets and then putting them on these recent sites. Interesting. We have no recourse on fraud. What happens too often to the tune of 20 something thousand dollars last year, these individuals will purchase on fraudulent credit cards, put them on a resale site. The buyer of those tickets from the resale site has those tickets in hand. If we know in advance that fraud was they're canceled. Then that person can go to to the ticket resell. What happens most often is the ticket's credit card fraudulent isn't reported until after the show closes. And that means they made the money on the tickets, which they pay nothing for, and the venue absorbs 100% of that, not the ad. And so you understand, typically, Flynn, out of 100% of sales, 95 per we try to work on 5% because that's about our margin. We're not We're fine. Additionally, there's a change in program. For instance, dates rescheduled, cancellations, last minute time changes. We have no method of communicating with people who brought the bought resale tickets. And when we contact the people who purchased the tickets for resale, 90% of the time, they don't pass on the information. So we have people showing up at the venue for shows that have been canceled, that we communicated. We've had people, not show up at the right time, and the time's been changed. There is no action. Resellers do not provide a with a person who sold those tickets to the other person. So

[Speaker 0]: the communication of Perhaps that's a piece that we should address at some point.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: That's part

[Speaker 0]: of it as Because it benefits all the venues, particularly nonprofit venues in terms of actually capturing who you're selling tickets to. So that we might let's cross a pin in that one.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: Let me jump ahead here. So we cannot afford the plan does not not afford to compete on Google AdWords to promote. So if you go in and look for tickets, I don't know if you give you Music Man tickets right now, but you're gonna have five resets off of it. Please note that. That's part of our challenge. These are all the resill sites, and I've had 20 ads presented this to

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: the mind.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: It's continuing to to to grow and grow. Some of these bear striking resemblance to ones that have been existence for several years when

[David (StubHub representative)]: you had a good time.

[Speaker 0]: Have you had some of them mimic the Flynn website?

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: Yes. Could you go on to the next? It goes back to what I can see. Or okay. So, yes. Here's an example on social media. So someone says, oh, this price that you're advertising your post here seems too low to be true. As an example of them just going and googling tickets and finding these prices that are insane markups. So I mentioned that many will advertise the lowest price, limited availability, which already came up. They won't note they're not the primary source, and they do advertise tickets not on sale, and they do them at the website. We look at the next one. And in some projects, they've sold the same tickets, small deals, highest. So I'm gonna point out CP. On this one. Best prices on the best seats. Go over to. These are the prices they're advertising. $1.00 $2.85 to $1.00 2. Our prices were set are 60 to 71. That their advertising showing in most of the resale sites, I'm not gonna move anybody from this, will put urgency on it. Oh, your tickets in your car. Buy them within two minutes. So there's all of this pressure. I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had with consumers who walk in asking me to please explain to their friends who they purchased the tickets as a group why they paid three, four, five times We'll do next one soon. We'll keep going along with that. This is an example of box office ticket sales and how they have a marquee to make it look like. Again, I can provide hundreds of examples. The next slide is I keep going with the Book of Mormon. Big problem for us is the the brand, the brand perception, and it does have a very negative impact. Yes. We wanna sell every seat as as was noted. But if people go to a resale site, see a ticket that's three, four, five times the price the list price of the ticket, they frequently go, I can't afford this. And, nonetheless, sometimes even email or comment, you guys are ripped off. You should be ashamed of yourselves. These resell sites do not really focus on what's best for the venue regardless of what is being sold. What's best for the venue, we have our own CRM and ticketing system that we pay hundreds, about a $100,000 a year for that provides us great information and ability, but when they get on and mark up tickets do we have the music and slides still up? There's a great example I had. I had it pulled because of the short time, but music man tickets, which we had plenty left right now. I wish to say that wasn't the case, but it was only 50% sold for two performances. They have tickets out there for $5.06 they have tickets for $800 on sale before we even put them on sale. So the impact of resellers talking about working with them, because they're not working with us. We, when someone purchases a ticket, they stick a checkbox that says, I'm purchasing purchasing these for my own use and not for resale. Any your website. That's on our website. It's the terms of conditions line. Can they check off on it and then go out and go to sites? Again, protect the consumer. This bill, the 10% cap, there has to be a cap. Gentleman spoke, David I believe it famous, about Lion King in New York years ago. New York used to have a 10% cap on ticket resales. When that was removed, the prices of Broadway skyrocketed to the point just talk to one of the Broadway producers. To the point that when they see on a resale site thousand dollars for a front row seat, they change their pricing to $900 for the front row seat. It's we don't wanna do that. The Flint's primary and most of the objectives of the other performing art venues in the state of Vermont wanna make art, performance, music, dance, what have you, accessible to all Vermonters and remove these barriers that exist by these resale apartments. It's having a very negative impact, and I think this is just a I've seen that it's a growing state. Right?

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: Right.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: We've identified and then refunded, which we do, Keep going. And credit card fraud last year was 15,000. Jeez. Additionally, the fraud has invested in staff. We have a part time person at a cost of $25,000 a year who does nothing to buy the monitor that could be selling. Plus, when we roll in the other calls, follow ups, even some other stuff, it's costing us over $50,000 a year. But, Flynn, I can provide that.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. No. No. We'd we'd love to have that, and we'd love to have you back, actually. We and if you'd be kind enough to send your slides and your testimony to Pierre, that'd be great. I guess one question is you have yet unlike UVM, you have yet to create a a contracted partnership with a reseller. We don't need

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: to have a reseller.

[Speaker 0]: You don't. Your prices are much better. So what is amazing to me is if people are outraged by those high prices, they're just calling the box office and saying, really? This particular They do. They They should.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: And on Call. Three years ago, because I worked in two venues

[Speaker 0]: Call her real person.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: We ended up when I saw this problem, one of the first things I did because I talked to so many patrons who felt so how victimized that we created a sheet, and one of the items on that sheet is they're call the consumer protection number. Well, but more importantly, call

[Speaker 0]: the box office at the Flynn Well,

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: they frequently are talking to us because when they find out is when they're there.

[Speaker 0]: Thomas, last question, and then we need to shift to a Gulf Warning.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: First of all, I just love the Flynn. I gotta go to see shows there anytime I possibly can. Here's here. Nick Offerman right now is not sold out at 4PM. I got the 7PM tickets. You got plenty of tickets, but it's SubHub is selling me tickets with only 4% lab at more than twice the price right now. So Exactly. This this isn't right. I mean, it should say something like, think it's still available at the venue, and you should go there.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: If one of my prior inquiries that I'm not seeing in the bill is you use on a font size that is as large as any other font, these are resale tickets. They won't do that stuff. And if they did that, their business would shrink because then people would go to the venue.

[Speaker 0]: Wendy, we're gonna be another ten minutes. Okay. Then We're gonna be fifteen ten, fifteen. I'll come back. Great.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: I thank you

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: for thank you more to follow.

[Speaker 0]: We appreciate. And do we go I can't remember if we do font size here. We do if we did it with David, but I can't remember on this.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: I don't.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: It's not in there. There's nothing about sizing. Great.

[Speaker 0]: Kevin, Brian, David, Susan, thank you very much. More to follow, we're just beginning to get a feel for this bill and what our challenges are. Thank you very much for those of you who came in.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: And for our local

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: advocates, thank you very much. And I'm sending that article about DIPNY and how challenging issue was that. Finally got the gift card.

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: Ryan and David, thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, Thank you. Okay. We're gonna shift. We're gonna shift gears.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Coming up.

[Speaker 0]: Todd, we're gonna see you. We're gonna add you. Yeah. But I think Maine and Susan, if you could try.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: For Maine and Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: And a global one or two. Price gaps. Great. Adult learners, we need to see you briefly. We have fifteen minutes. So we're gonna shift to labor to workforce development and to workforce. Hi. Come on in. Hey. Okay. Who is on deck first? I've got Welcome. Let's close the door, Meg, and then let's get started because we have fifteen minutes. I'm gonna start off. Have this. Do not do that. Good morning. For the record, I am Brian Kravitz. I'm director I'm a resident of Waterbury, and I'm director of outreach and workforce development at Central Vermont Adult Ed. I'm very honored to bring our students here today to share the work that we're doing to help And protect the with that, I will put that away. And let us start with who'd like to go first?

[David (StubHub representative)]: You go first.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: You'll go first. Go Hold on.

[Speaker 0]: Remember to say your name. First time, I'll

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: look it.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Come join us. Good morning. Good morning.

[Paul Stromberg (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: My name is Paul Stromberg. Originally, I'm from South Sudan. I came here in 2023 as a refugee. Welcome. Thank you. I'm here to come and say thank you for supporting General Monarch's allergies. I was first to probably the chief. My dad had nine wives and 50 children. So I want to know that my dad, as a chief for the community, he would usually go to resolve the community issues under the tree of our company. He listened to how we address community issues. So in the evening, when we come back home, I would ask me what was my observation. I would give him my opinion about how we would resolve some of the issues in a good way. And whatever case that I mentioned, my dad would send his messages to call that person and maybe adjust the final way some of the permission to that person. So that has sort of been our feelings to be someone that can serve the community in a good way. So my desire at that point was to go to school and be like my father, serve the community. But I never got the opportunity to go to school because of the war in South Sudan. Because the authorities were interested in my community labs because of oils and minerals. So we used to experience a lot of bombardment day and night. So I never got the opportunity to go to school until the time that I got injured. Here I have some rice in my hand here by the helicopter. And I was taken to Kenya by a gynecologist. So it is from there, after I to school. I didn't finish the school very well. So in 2011, I decided to go back to my country. So that would break me away from Sudan to become So my I decided let me go back home so that I can support my country to break away from Sudan so that I can have a home that I would not be identified with a color or a vision. So I went there. We got our independence, June 11. Within two years, civil war was redone again. Then I ended up running back to Rimizikam. So from Kenya back to Uganda, and back to Uganda, stayed. So when I came here, without wasting time, I joined the Monota learning because I had that feeling of being like my father to Southern community. So I have been with the VALS for the last, almost now going to, this would be my third year. I was given a test to take before I would have been enrolled from the class, but I didn't even score at that time. So I failed, But I didn't give up. So until now, I have improved a lot. I have now studied almost all the courses that was offered to the student, and I've improved a lot. So I'm very grateful to be able go with this state. I am a chief of law right now. And by this month of June, I am graduating, and I am hopeful that I'll do it positive and do loans, economic, and public policy so that in future, if my country get peace, I

[Speaker 0]: can go back online now That would be great. To start my community. Thank you. So adult learning has really been a lifeline for you and a path into what your future career and and you hope to to make your future career and to take it back to

[David (StubHub representative)]: We're gonna have peace of school.

[Speaker 0]: That peace of Sudan Yeah. Which needs your leadership so much.

[Paul Stromberg (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: Yes, if I did, I was just wondering if I didn't come to this state, where would I have been right now? Right. So I've been treated a lot in this state, and I am very hopeful that I have a bright future and I will be a tourist who's into this state as well as this country. Even though my dream is not to go back home one day with with maybe material settings and or anything. I just want to go back home with

[Speaker 0]: the patient. With the tools to to leave. Yes. That I can go and then make a change in connection. We wish you good luck. Thank you. Anybody have a question before we That's great. Well, my guess is many meetings are in store for you. Including this one. Thank you so much. That's great. And who might we hear from next? We're going hear from Preachas. Priestus.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: You. Thank you, Joel.

[Riseita Rosales (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: Thank you so much, Joel. Okay. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. My name is Riseita Rosales. It is our pleasure to be here with all of you. Thank you for inviting us. I'm from Colombia, and I came to The United States one year and a half ago. I came with the conviction of keeping 180 degrees to my diet. I arrived at to Texas, but after a year, I came to Vermont. I'm sorry for my bad English.

[Speaker 0]: For a year, you're doing Okay. Incredibly

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay.

[Riseita Rosales (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: Here in Vermont, I help out people with big hearts, people very kind. The United States is a country of opportunities. For me, the most important is that here, I feel safe. Here, I'm learning English. Also, I have found the CPE. Actuarial Education has been a great help with all of us, and also for people, for me, for people like me who think that it is the barrier that we must break to move forward with our goals. In my point of view, I took education is helping me to understand better and to speak more fluently. English is not easy. It's very hard for us. Outdoor education teaches us that step by step, we can do it. Recently, in my in addition to my English classes, adult education gave me the opportunity to take a job training course in weatherization. Great. It was something, a really big challenge for me, but not impossible. I had great teachers and also special in these classes to get new vocabulary about relaxation. It was three weeks of training. In And these classes, including OSHA and training. Also, in these classes, I discovered that OSHA is my passion, and in the future, I would like to study something with OSHA. Okay. And now I'm working with Walmart delivery, but I'm hoping to get full time with some company in weatherization because I would like to give up to the Central Vermont community.

[Speaker 0]: And is your plan to stay here in The United States? Yes. So, Dua who's hoping to go take his new skills and go back, hope you're able to go back. It's wonderful to have you. Okay, thank you. Thanks.

[Riseita Rosales (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: I appreciate it that you are here with us and opening the door for all of us and trusting in us is very important. Thank you. I hope to continue learning and to get a good job here with organization. I would like to finish with a phrase that at orientation views, and it says, learning lacks a lifetime. The meaning in Spanish is, and it's a phrase for me very interesting and inspiring. So, you so much for all your Learning is a lifetime opportunity,

[Speaker 0]: and, I mean, we're we should all be learning our entire lifetime. I mean, that's part of why I think all of us love being legislators, is we learn every day something new.

[Riseita Rosales (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: Okay. Thank you. So, thank you so much, and I'm grateful for we all receive. Great. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you very much. And And Jonathan. Jonathan? Oh, god. Okay. You gotta jump. You gotta name is Jonathan Snodgen. Hello, Jonathan. Welcome. I am definitely nervous. Don't be.

[David (StubHub representative)]: Don't be nervous. The the nearer we got to here in the car, the the more nerves went. And then I saw the the on the dome, and I was like, oh my god. It's actually here. Alright.

[Jonathan Snodgen (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: So, I'm okay. I was unsure about my future. I joined with my I'm now learning to work on my English writing skills along with my master's. I am learning how to write creative, persuasive, and a journal paper which has already helped my writing. My family has told me that my writing skills have improved. When my friends and family read my emails, they told me that they could understand my message for the first time. Correct. I'm also in a band called Diamond. I write songs, and my mind has opened up to new ideas since working on my writing skills. My math skills have also improved. I have gone from pre algebra to algebra. This makes me happy. I am glad because I'm sick of free algebra.

[Speaker 0]: Lots of people can agree with it.

[Jonathan Snodgen (Adult learner, Central Vermont Adult Education)]: Wanted to try algebra. My math teacher, this has helped me with my math problem, which has greatly improved. When I first started, my brain could not handle looking at a crowd without being scared. Thanks to my math teacher, I am slowly getting less scared. My math has my confidence swimming and shopping because my confidence has reached a high level. My ability to understand the intense rhythm of advanced drumming has greatly has improved greatly too. My goals in the future are either to go to or to return to college and get my bachelor's degree. No matter what's the next step, all other learning and what that learning is helping me will teach me the skills for my next step. Thank you very much. I think it's very important to have funding for for Vermont that I'm learning to help people of all

[Speaker 0]: like, all All abilities. Yeah. All walks of life.

[David (StubHub representative)]: All walks of life to come and get a better time in in America.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, all three of you. We are And very we appreciate you illustrating all the some of the strengths of adult learning, which we value enormously in this committee and advocate for in appropriations. So thank you all You're very perfect timing.

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

[Speaker 0]: Right. And thank you very much. Have a lovely rest of the day. And, Jonathan,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: don't miss here at the or

[Speaker 0]: the State House. We're all just people. Okay. It's just we're all here together.

[David (StubHub representative)]: You you you all look so nice. You all dress nice with coats and ties and dressings. It's just so amazing. Well, we have a dress

[Speaker 0]: code. Thank you. Thank thank you so much. And if you send Whitney Harrison in, that would be great. Wendy.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Wendy? Yeah. Wendy and where? Okay.

[Speaker 0]: They warmed warmed you up. Yeah. Thanks. We have ticket sellers and then adult learners. I remember from last year. Yeah, they're really great. No, they're great. We're hanging out at all. Wendy, welcome. Do we have a copy of your, um- I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: do not know. It is

[Speaker 0]: very brief. Oh, you do. Sorry.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: Sorry. What's that? 327.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Have a copy of speaker.

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Here's a copy. And this is the 327, which is on the floor this afternoon. Correct. So we're needing to hear it now.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: I can do this in thirty seconds if you want, or I can do it in a minute.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: You have ten minutes left. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: I mean, until we all

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: have And we have the attorney.

[Speaker 0]: Who's got my back too? Yes. Sure. Okay. Welcome, Wendy.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It's good to have you. Thank you, madam Chittenden.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: So Wendy Harrison and I represent the Windsor District which is in Southeast Vermont. So this is an amendment that I would like to propose today and it's regarding the inventory that is in threetwenty seven and I want to make sure that employee owned and specific blocks are included in this inventory. I understood that part of the impetus for this bill is to support Vermont businesses and employee owned and co ops are the kind of business that will stay in Vermont,

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: as you heard me say

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: before, so there is a rationale for this. The first part of the amendment, I can't believe for the break to discuss and it has to do with how the bill was changed by appropriations. So the purpose is more accurate now and he can explain that more if you would like. The second instance of amendment is the one that addresses my Section seven, is right. Section seven, correct? Where it inserts language saying stakeholders including representatives of employee owned businesses to make sure that employee owned businesses are considered. Sometimes they're not seen as part of the regular business route. Just like for a few examples because we often, I use the term co op a lot, and so we often think of co op grocery stores, which are helpful, but those are not the only kind of employee owned. From us, you're probably familiar with, There's that's employee IT companies, they're banking company, credit unions. There's a construction company, PC Construction that is employee owned. And there's Empire and Independence Valuation, which is a consulting firm and that's employee owned. And I know of a bridge company that is employee owned. So there's all kinds of businesses that are doing good work and when we support employee owned, the revenues that are generated by that business go into their employees, which are also local. Right.

[Speaker 0]: I mean, I have said, but my pushback on this is stakeholders, there are so many stakeholders that to call out just one set is a little challenging, and so we chose to keep it just stakeholders. Right. And I think that's my only concern with this is that otherwise we'd create a laundry list of stakeholders.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: I understand, and again, attorney the can talk about that because there was not, in this section, was not a list of types of businesses to include. It just said businesses. Right. All businesses. He could have included a separate item on that long list, but that long list is really what is going to happen, not who is going to be part of what happens. But just find that employee owned is often left out and I think it's crucial to not leave them out.

[Speaker 0]: Right, and the house can decide whether to include and be specific about the stakeholders they want to, which is thank you. Thank any questions for Wendy before we move to Rick?

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Thank you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: for your consideration.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it. I'm just gonna

[Speaker 0]: Thank you for being such an advocate for employee owned businesses, which we have seen in your work, in your all sorts of things, in veggie work. Rick. Good morning. Good morning.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: For the record, Rick Segal with the office of Lipset Accounting. Dropped 1.4 of the amendments that senator Harrison, what I deferred to be on section one. So senate appropriations deleted all the sections that had appropriations, and Section one did not have an appropriation. No. So let me I'm getting to why I amended section one. Section one is the purpose statement.

[Speaker 0]: Right. Because the things they meant.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: So

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: give you I'll my give explanation, and you can

[Speaker 0]: Just so you know, I'm taking the entire bill that passed out of this committee to the housecovers.

[Kevin Sweeney (Director of Sales & Marketing, The Flynn)]: Understood.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So because the senate adopted the appropriations amendment, which struck through the service sections, the purpose stated no longer makes sense. Understood. Did you want to leave it in the bill so the house can see what was in there. It does say delete it, so when I will inform the house what was there, of course, the sections that were approved, I will inform them this is what was in there. But, again, the purpose statement updated to reflect what is actually in the path for another bill.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Sure. Sir? Thomas. I'm generally fine with this. This is because we've passed the appropriations amendment yesterday at second reading, and so this is adjusting the intent to reflect that approved amendment. But we do this a lot. Like, the prose guts things a lot. Is this common that we need to adjust the intent after they do their gutting?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: They're gutting. They're gutting. So can I take a step back? The bill, the way it was drafted was based on last year's economic health result, which the budget was done very early last year. So the way that bill was drafted was in allocations because there had already been appropriations made. The bill used the same language. Because the budget is not done yet, they are comfortable saying, You know what? Let's remove this all because we'll have a list of things that we're going to put in order contingencies, and then we'll put it back if we need to. So because language drafted as far as Alcatians, they chose to strike the language instead of just saying the contingency. I offered to amend the language to make it to lead it in there and use the words contingent,

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: but they preferred to strike the the language.

[Speaker 0]: Which is frustrating because it has no appropriations actually in it. Perfect.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: So it was a choice they made to not make a contingent, to actually strike it. That's what

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: works this discussion. The argument that was made was that because it's allocation, there does not have to be an appropriation, therefore, it's confusing, they don't want to have to deal with language that it uses words and means that money's already

[Speaker 0]: been able like investing in our economic resources, which we hope it will by the time we leave here in May. Got it. Yep. So I actually I wanna keep our original purpose because I am hopeful that some of our appropriations will make it through. How does the committee feel about that? I I do feel that this is on the wall. This isn't struck forever. This is just temporarily gutted. I temporarily gutted fish.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Got it.

[Speaker 0]: Got it. So I feel that in some ways, the time to redo the purpose is once we actually have the work the final work done by a person. And then at that point, Wendy, I would, if you don't mind, I would prefer to amend the purpose at that point, which will reflect the bill as it's finally makes it through. Is that fair? Are you talking Well, yeah, you're proposing it.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: I am neutral on the purpose. Right.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So your real concern is the second thing. Correct. Okay. So I would strike this and live in hope and push very hard to live in hope and and advocate for this when we're there and the work is being done on this. Is that is that okay, everybody? Okay. Great. So second instance of amendment, we need to move on. How do people feel in section seven online? Well, what was on quarantine? Now who knows? Probably line two. It it basically would then read the commissioner economic development in consultation with stakeholders, including representatives of employee owned businesses for the purpose of the journey, how to say better blah blah blah. Right? How how do people feel? I feel that stakeholders influence everybody, but I also appreciate Wendy's advocacy for employee owned businesses, which how are people feeling?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Not against this. This seems to just be intentionally inclusive of a voice that maybe hasn't been heard of enough of previously.

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Yeah. Fine with it. It's relatively big.

[Brian Barry (Executive Director, association of ticket marketplaces)]: David, as a ten year alumni, the one of the nation's largest employee owned companies. I I remain ambivalent. I understand the intent. I don't want to necessarily think it needs a a unique call out. But I I don't want to get in the way of it. Understood. Yeah. Randy?

[Unknown (committee member or staff)]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: We're just.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. I mean, I so I'm recalling that we heard from one employee of business that appreciated the fallout because they otherwise they they could have used something like this. They otherwise did with the

[Speaker 0]: Right. That was I think one way.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: Alternative. Right.

[Speaker 0]: So let's include it for the moment, and we'll see what the house does with it. It's about to go there for further work anyway. So let's yeah.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Can I propose something then? Yeah. If you wanna remove this senator Harrison to removing the purpose so we don't have two instance of amendment, let's just make it one. Let's just make it one. Senator

[Sen. Wendy Harrison]: Harrison? Oh, that's great.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So what I'll do is we'll have to wrap 1.5 of senator Harrison's amendment with just that second instance of amendment Right.

[Speaker 0]: As being the only instance of amendment. Right. Terrific. That makes it simpler. And that's what you're gonna do. Okay. And, pan vote or five zip? Is that Which was on including section b? Okay. Okay. We have Okay. Great. We need to

[Unknown (staff/attendee)]: go. Thank you. Thank you.