Massachusetts Governor Considers Pushing Ticket Resale Price Cap in Budget After Standalone Bill Stalls

The late-session proposal would restrict concert resale prices and secondary-market fees while leaving primary ticket prices untouched — a distinction critics say could strengthen Ticketmaster as Massachusetts pursues monopoly remedies against Live Nation.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said Thursday, July 16, that she will attach a sweeping ticket resale proposal to an upcoming closeout supplemental budget, giving a ticket resale price-cap measure that has gained little traction as a standalone bill a chance of passing as part of the larger fiscal package.

Speaking at a State House press conference, Healey said the proposal would prohibit concert tickets from being resold for more than 110% of their original price. It would also cap reseller service fees at 10%, including fees charged on sports tickets, while banning speculative or “ghost” listings for tickets the seller does not possess.

Additional provisions would prohibit resale sites from misleading consumers into believing they are affiliated with an artist or venue and would restrict false scarcity messages and other pressure tactics. Healey called the package “an act to close the great divide between ticket prices and affordability.”

“Buying a ticket to a show or a concert shouldn’t feel like winning a lottery ticket,” Healey said.

Singer Noah Kahan appeared by video to endorse the proposal, which Healey and state Sen. Dylan Fernandes promoted using prices surrounding Kahan’s recent Fenway Park concerts. Fernandes cited resale asking prices ranging from $900 to as much as $39,000, relying on high outlier prices that likely did not sell as examples of resale market excess.

The administration has presented the measure as applying to concerts and sporting events, but Healey’s specific 110% price-cap language at the press conference referred to concert tickets. The final statutory text will need to clarify whether the same price limit applies to sports tickets, how the “original ticket price” will be calculated and whether mandatory fees from the primary sale are included in that figure.

Budget route follows stalled standalone bill

The proposal closely follows Fernandes’ “An Act to make Noah Kahan tickets affordable for the rest of us,” filed June 18 as SD.3994. That bill would prohibit resale above 110% of the original ticket price and impose several consumer-disclosure and anti-deception requirements.

The standalone measure was referred to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Rules and has no further recorded action. Healey’s decision to place similar policy language in a supplemental spending bill provides a more immediate legislative vehicle as lawmakers approach the scheduled July 31 end of formal sessions. The Legislature could still alter, remove or reject the provisions during the budget process.

There is relatively broad agreement around some parts of the package. Even organizations representing resale marketplaces support prohibitions on deceptive speculative listings and websites that impersonate venues or artists.

The central dispute is instead over the price cap — and what it does not regulate.

Resale prices capped, primary prices untouched

As described by Healey, the 110% ceiling would begin only after a ticket has been sold initially. It would not restrict the price charged in the primary transaction, cap primary-market service fees or otherwise limit the ability of an artist, promoter, venue or primary ticketing company to determine the initial price.

That distinction prompted an immediate objection from the Ticket Policy Forum, a coalition representing online ticket marketplaces.

“We emphatically support banning deceptive speculative tickets and agree with Governor Healey that tickets are more expensive than ever, but her proposal ignores and exempts the illegal Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly,” TPF Executive Director Brian Berry said in a statement issued following the press conference.

Berry called the proposal “protection for the illegal monopoly, not fans,” arguing that lawmakers should apply any new pricing rules to Ticketmaster and the primary market as well as independent resale platforms.

Independent-market critics argue that this structure gives a vertically integrated company an advantage. A primary seller can continue earning revenue when tickets are first issued and can control the technology through which those tickets are transferred. Standalone resale exchanges, by contrast, would be required to operate entirely within the capped secondary-market economics.

Proposal echoes industry-backed resale campaign

The Massachusetts proposal also arrives amid a coordinated national campaign by Live Nation Entertainment, the Fix the Tix coalition and allied artist and venue organizations to impose tighter controls on ticket resale.

Ticketmaster has publicly advocated a national rule limiting concert resale prices to 20% above face value. Fix the Tix has promoted an even stricter federal cap tied to the original total ticket price, along with a 10% limit on resale fees. The coalition includes the Irving Azoff-aligned Music Artists Coalition, which has promoted polling and lobbying efforts in support of resale price controls.

Supporters say those restrictions would preserve artists’ ability to set affordable prices and stop professional sellers from collecting the difference when tickets are worth more on the open market.

Critics see the campaign differently. They argue that focusing political attention on resale allows the dominant primary-ticketing ecosystem to avoid more consequential scrutiny of initial prices, inventory distribution, fees and market control.

The similarity between Healey’s proposal and the national lobbying agenda does not establish that Live Nation or Fix the Tix authored the Massachusetts plan. It does, however, explain some of the skepticism surrounding a measure that regulates prices charged by Ticketmaster’s competitors while leaving the company’s primary-ticketing revenue outside the limit.

Warnings about fraud and off-platform sales

Price-cap opponents also contend that restricting transactions on regulated marketplaces does not eliminate demand for scarce tickets.

When a ticket’s market value substantially exceeds the legal price, buyers and sellers may move to social media, private messaging services, classified advertisements or other unregulated channels. Those transactions generally lack the verification systems, refund guarantees and customer-service mechanisms offered by licensed resale platforms.

Sports Fans Coalition and other fan and consumer advocates have made that argument in opposing resale caps, warning that such rules can reduce legitimate inventory while exposing consumers to more fraud rather than making desirable tickets broadly available at the controlled price.

The comparison to Maine offered by supporters is also less straightforward than it appeared at Thursday’s press conference. Although Maine is frequently described as having a 110% resale cap, the Maine attorney general has interpreted that provision as limiting the additional fees and charges imposed by a reseller rather than capping the underlying resale price itself.

Massachusetts is still pursuing Ticketmaster monopoly remedies

The primary-market omission is particularly notable because Massachusetts is simultaneously participating in the antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

In April, a federal jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster unlawfully maintained monopoly power in several live-entertainment markets, including primary ticketing services at major concert venues. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell was among the state enforcers that continued pursuing the case after the federal government reached its own settlement.

Live Nation is challenging the verdict and has asked the court to enter judgment in its favor or order a new trial. A remedies proceeding — which could determine whether the company faces behavioral restrictions, divestitures or other structural relief — has not been completed.

Berry argued that weakening independent resale competition could reduce the consumer benefits of any eventual Live Nation-Ticketmaster breakup. The Massachusetts proposal would not legally alter the antitrust case, but his criticism points to an apparent conflict in policy direction: state officials are asking a federal court to restore competition in ticketing while considering a price rule that opponents say would make it harder for independent secondary-market companies to compete.

The debate also follows Massachusetts’ 2024 enactment of ticketing provisions that allow event operators to restrict ticket transfers when those restrictions are disclosed to buyers. Critics of that law warned that transfer controls could lock consumers into Ticketmaster’s platform and strengthen the same vertically integrated market structure challenged in the antitrust litigation.

Healey’s new proposal directly addresses speculative listings, deceptive sales practices and highly visible resale markups. It does not, as announced, address the initial pricing and supply decisions made before a ticket reaches the secondary market.

That leaves Massachusetts lawmakers with a broader question as the language moves into the budget process: whether high ticket prices are principally a resale problem, or the product of market power that begins with the original sale.