Gone are the days of buying a ticket for a concert or sports event at the box office; online ticket retailers reign supreme, to many a consumer’s dismay. 

Companies like Ticketmaster and Stubhub have been criticized for their lack of transparency when it comes to ticket prices, often springing hidden fees on customers just before they check out. A study conducted by the University of California Berkeley found that this tactic, known as “drip-pricing” can increase the price of tickets by over 20%.

Colorado legislators are hoping to increase accountability for both primary and secondary ticket sellers with a new piece of legislation they say differs significantly from last year’s Senate Bill 060, which also took aim at the ticketing industry and was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis. 

Representative William Lindstedt, D- Broomfield, is a sponsor of this year’s legislation, HB 1378, which he believes to be more consumer-focused than SB23-060.                                                                                                                                                      

“This is a new bill. I actually did not support last year’s bill because I thought it should be more consumer-oriented, and this bill is more focused on consumers,” he said. “We’ve worked on it with consumer groups, venues, and ticket sellers, both primary and secondary, to try to set some basic rules: if a concert gets canceled, you get a refund. Prices need to be clear and transparent. You can’t use deceptive URLs to make people think they’re buying tickets from venues.”

The bill also prohibits venues from denying entry to patrons if their ticket was purchased through a reseller and expands upon the actions that constitute deceptive trade practices under Colorado statute. 

Lindstedt said he hopes the bill will make the ticket-buying process less of a headache for Coloradans. “Right now, buying tickets is a rough experience, I think, for most people,” he said. 

Unlike SB23-060, this year’s measure does not include a ban on speculative ticketing, which is the practice of reselling a ticket before the seller actually possesses it. Lindstedt compared the practice to the once-commonplace custom of paying someone to stand in line for you to purchase tickets at a box office. He said imposing an outright ban on the practice would be difficult for the state to regulate. 

I don’t think it should be illegal to pay someone to stand in line,” he said. “I think having transparency so consumers know what they’re actually paying for is better for everyone and is a better approach that will benefit consumers.”

Another stark contrast between the two bills is that HB 1378 has the support of consumer advocacy groups, Lindstedt said. While he believed venues and primary ticket sellers like Ticketmaster remain neutral to the bill, he expressed hope that it could serve as a potential starting point for establishing some common ground among all parties involved. 

“I think the odds of this bill passing are very good,” he said. “We have been working since last year, trying to take a different approach. I think there’s things in here that both sides of this debate would want to have included.”

Failure to adhere to the bill’s provisions will be considered a deceptive trade practice punishable by the attorney general. 

Lindstedt admitted that the ticketing industry is challenging to regulate because there are so many parties involved. “You have artists come into venues and they have certain rules, and then venues have certain rules and contracts, so it gets to be really complex,” he said. I think some of this might require some thoughtful conversations with folks in the industry to make sure we get it right and so that [the bill] is implementable. But overall, I think everybody agrees there’s a problem, and we’re here to protect consumers at the end of the day.”

Lindstedt said, “It’s gonna really help protect consumers. It’s a great piece of legislation, and I think everybody wanted more and gave a lot to actually pass something in a collaborative fashion this year.”

While similar legislation has been proposed in Congress by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Connecticut, no action has been taken on it since September. Lindstedt said transparency in the ticketing industry is especially important to Coloradans, who access to some of the best concert and sports venues in the nation. 

“Our entertainment industry in the state is one of the reasons people move here,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons we have such a young, growing, fast-paced metro area with some of the best venues in the country. I think for Colorado to move into the future, we need to make sure that that industry is as accessible and transparent as it can be for those consumers so that we can keep moving in the right direction as a state.” 

The bill will go before the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee on April 11. It is co-sponsored in the House by Rep. Alex Valdez, D- Denver and in the Senate by Senators Tom Sullivan, D- Aurora and Bob Gardner, R- Colorado Springs.