First let me start out by saying I did NOT publish this SO the words or letters like I (are not me so I don't want credit)
I am just sharing it BUT it's very interesting to say the least
I wanted to present this letter to you, as a bit of an education to the history and future of NY State Laws regarding ticket resale.
While many brokers have been around for over 10 years during "the good old days", or "pre-internet era", the internet has actually had a tremendous growth of the secondary market since 2007, especially in NY.
Many of you, therefore, might not be aware of the legal history in this state. Prior to 2007, the secondary market consisted of a network of brokers over the phone, eBay, Craigslist, the Yellow pages, and your local client list. The idea of "public market", such as Stubhub was just a nice concept.
NY had a law, for many years prior to 2007, that stated anyone that wanted to resell a ticket was not allowed to offer or resell such ticket at more than $2 above face value. Ticket holders, brokers, fans, Season ticket holders alike, were all restricted of their own property. Imagine trying to do businesses in such a world in our wonderful state... Impossible to say the least!
So what changed? Why did Albany re-write the NY Entertainment law in 2007? How did "scalping" become legal, and the secondary market flourish allowing fans and brokers to essentially "trade" tickets for money, or "open market"??
Great question. Let me take you back to the year 1991. A couple of NY based brokers got together and they had a vision: No more would the state dictate what they would be allowed to resell a ticket for. No longer would an owner of an Event ticket be restricted to selling it at $2 above cost. I mean, let's face it: Season ticket holders are forced to resell many games under face value... shouldn't they be entitled to recoup on those big match-ups??
So these brokers hired a Lobbyist to guide them around Albany, NY. For 17 straight years, they explained to State Senators and legislators how a ticket holder should have rights like any other owner: Be allowed to resell a ticket, anywhere, anytime, at any amount. And for 17 years, they were turned away in Albany. Well, almost: Governor Spitzer agreed. But the Bill would never get as far has his desk to sign it. It never got enough votes and signatures by the Senators and Legislators to get to him.
Fast forward to 2007. Stubhub and eBay are growing with ticket resellers. Craigslist is flourishing with ticket traders. NY had finally seen it all: a secondary market was truly publicly being traded online. NY FINALLY listened to these brokers and their lobbist, removed the resale restrictions, and prohibited venues from restricting your ticket rights!
Many of us have entered this secondary market space post-2007: in the internet era. Some of you reading this might not even have known that there was a restriction on resale. For the past 10 years, we have an open market in NY, and many don't even know that this was fought for over 17 long years. We simply reap the benefits of this open market, with perhaps, not a clue what has been done for us... or worse, what is now being done against us since business got so great.
In 2010, NY actually prohibited venues from offering for sale a "non-transferable ticket", also known in the industry as "paperless". Since then, many venues, artists, and promoters have taken a stance against this. Some artists have threatened, and have decided to play in New Jersey instead and avoid the big NY Venues, so they could sell paperless.
We all know the effects of "paperless": fans can't resell or gift a ticket to another, brokers can't help those selling fans and buying fans meet, and worst of all, the venue has a monopoly and can now ask any price on Face Value they so choose. Overall, the consumer is hurt with higher prices dictated by the black-market, or the newly raises face value.
So what's been happening the past 7 years? Well, a bunch of venues, artists, and promoters here in NY have gotten together and been asking Albany for the past 7 years to allow them freedom to control a ticket owner's ticket. For the past 6 years, they were unsuccessful. Legislation has renewed the 2008 law, year after year, giving all ticket holders peace of mind.
Enter June 2016. Hamilton is the hottest ticket Broadway has ever seen. There's Millions of fans that want to see it, but only a couple thousand tickets available per night. Fans have been buying this ticket from the box office since a few months after it opened, and eventually sold out, leading to many fans and brokers alike wanting to possibly resell any extra ticket they can. Lin Manuel Miranda realizes that the $69 Balcony ticket his producers priced the year prior, that actually sat unsold for the first few months of the show, was now sold out and he had tremendous sellers remorse. His actors and actresses want a raise in pay. His investors want to know why such a great show is only returning $69-$189 per ticket: it's because his producers didn't hold on to their risk. They let fans buy their tickets for much less than what they could have truly been worth.
Miranda blames the secondary market. Which, mind you, only had a fraction of a fraction of the tickets. The rest were in the hands of fans that invested in their early-purchased 2 early-purchased tickets when the show was in previews, hoping to see something magical. Those fans were rewarded. Their tickets were worth EVERY Penny. But what about the late buyers? The one's that didn't know Hamilton existed before the show was sold out? Miranda blames "Robots" and "scalpers".
Governor Cuomo renews the 2007 law once again in 2016, but he won't let it on easy. He's heard enough from Hamilton to the point where he added, on the condition that it will review the law, and make some "necessary" changes... and finally gives in to speakers such as Miranda and venues to let them help write this law.
Well, a few months ago, this new law was written by Senator Squadron in Albany. It hasn't been signed... yet. Curious what this "new law" proposes? Let me let you in:
- No marketplace can open until 48 hours after primary sale.
-Seller's information disclosed on the site, along with their resale license. - he has talked about the possible removal of paperless protection.
- obligation to disclose the "face value" of EVERY listed ticket for sale (despite the past 5 years of Dynamic pricing, would confuse buyers ever more)
-Illegal to resell Charity tickets at more than "face value" (imagine how many events would start classifying itself as chairty!)
An NY event reseller's worst nightmares have been realized once again after reading through this proposed law a few months ago. We gathered together and reached out to the Lobbyist up in Albany that's been involved since 1991, and immediately called for help. A dozen brokers called a meeting in NYC, and formed the "Coalition for Ticket Fairness". It's goal: We need to explain to the State Senators and legislators why each one of these ideas are bad for the consumer, and just gives the promoters and venues a monopoly on a product they've already sold.
One of the brokers that's been in and out of Albany since 1991 reassured everyone, if we keep pushing in Albany, they'll hear our side too. Promoters and Venues don't have the only say.
May 3rd, 2017: after many Albany trips, 6 brokers journey up to Albany, and explain all the downsides of these new proposed laws. It took 10 hours, but they kept wanting to hear more, understand more, hear why the venues are wrong, why any restriction is bad for the consumer. They've even promised us to hear us out entirely when they write these new laws, and not just listen to the venue's side of this.
You think any broker wants to leave for the entire day in middle of NBA/NHL playoffs? You're nuts! We all wanted to stay back in our offices recouping multiples on our thinner regular season margins like any other broker. But collectively, we all knew that this one day visit might save us for years to come.
Did you know how many Venues, promoters, artists we're going up against? It's over a dozen BIG NAMES. And not to scare you, but they have their own Coalition: the "NY Sports and Entertainment Industry Coalition". It's not small, and they have some money behind them. They're hungry: they've been losing in Albany 10 years straight. They want to take control and monopolize by having NY write laws in their promoters and artist's favor.
Did you know that we have the full support of EVERY secondary market on our fight, and they've even contributed financially towards our coalition - no questions asked!
Did you know that the secondary markets have actually started hiring their own lobbyists to run around Albany, explaining to state senators as well these tremendous negative effects to the consumer?
Well now you do, and we're working closely with their's to keep the fairness message that we're trying to pass along.
But we can't do it alone. We're only a dozen brokers. You don't want to think about "what if" if something like this gets passed. We don't want to look back and say "if only we spent a few hours and a few bucks, we could have saved our NY business side.
If you think that someone else will take care of this, and it'll get done? You're wrong.
Every broker that's part of this CFTF - NY has contributed time and/or money. All money is ONLY going towards lobbying. NO OTHER EXPENSES. We're on the right path thus far as the law's extension is now being talked about for another year so Albany can have more time to review the law, but we need your help to stay and grow. We kindly ask you to "join" this CFTF NY, see the latest that we're fighting, get email updates from us. Contribute if we're low on funds. Show some new faces in Albany too like we did that day on May 3rd. These State Senators were pleased to see the new brokers they've never met, and were so interested in hearing how many we employ, and the business we bring to their state. They just want to see that people care, and when respected, they'll listen passionately to EVERY WORD that's spoken. Senator Squadron had written the "face value" part of the law thinking that this would help the consumer understand the value of what they were buying. He had no idea about "dynamic pricing", and how face value means nothing these days, and admitted he was "convinced that face value means nothing anymore".
With the Lead of these few brokers, they've been doing this since 1991. They've fought Albany longer than the promoters have. Our lobbyist's office is literally on the same block as the Legislation office building. He Knows EVERYONE that works there, their schedules, their families, and even their favorite teams/shows.
We have the right people on our side. We just need to keep being heard, and stay ahead.
Please join the Coalition for Ticket Fairness NY, stand up for yourself, your employees, your business, and your clients, and help keep ticket ownership rights where it's supposed to be: the ticket holders.
You may reach out at info@ctfny.org and one of the brokers will reach out to you to discuss the latest of what's going on.