A $310 floor seat advertised by a ticket reseller for the upcoming Cyndi Lauper show at D.C.’s Capital One Arena seems reasonable, said Sally Greenberg, executive director with the National Consumers League, but some buyers were surprised to learn that’s not the ticket’s final price.
“With service fees and delivery, a $620 pair of tickets now comes out to $963 — that’s a 55% increase on those face value tickets,” she said.
Greenberg is pushing for Congress to pass the Ticket Act, H.B. 3950, which passed the U.S. House and is headed to the Senate. The bill offers several ways to increase transparency by requiring sellers to disclose if they don’t physically have the tickets and mandating all-in ticket pricing.
“When you’re looking at that $75 price and say to yourself, ‘It could turn into $100, or $120 or what I’ll end up paying,’ but you have to go through so many steps to find the final price,” Greenberg said. “Research has found when consumers go through 20 steps, they kind of throw in the towel and say ‘I’ve been at this (for)15 or 20 minutes. I’m just going to buy the darned ticket.'”
“We call it junk fees. We call it drip pricing. Call it what you will — we think it’s a consumer ripoff,” Greenberg said.
The Ticket Act would require the first price you see online for a ticket to match the final price you pay: “If you’re going to add fees, they have to be upfront, and that way you could go, ‘I don’t like this site. I’m going to try a different site,'” Greenberg said.
According to the National Consumers League, tens of millions of fans attend concerts, sports, theater and other live events, which generate more than $130 billion in economic impact each year.
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