The National Independent Venue Association is making a push to federal lawmakers get so-called “speculative tickets” banned, citing reports from fans for FIFA World Cup games getting turned away at games after buying tickets they couldn’t actually receive.
In a letter to Senate and Congressional leaders Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries, John Thune and Chuck Schumer, NIVA detailed local news reports and testimonials from several fans who tried attending games across the country since the World Cup started last week, only to be told before the event that their tickets couldn’t be delivered.
Speculative ticketing is among the most controversial practices in the live events space, with critics likening the strategy to fraud. With speculative tickets — or as NIVA called them in the letter “ghost tickets” — brokers list tickets they don’t possess yet on platforms like StubHub and VividSeats, hoping to eventually snag tickets in the general seating area they listed. If they can’t manage to get the actual tickets, the fans are out of luck. The ticketing platforms will typically refund buyers for the purchases themselves, but that doesn’t account for travel expenses they may have accrued for flights, hotels, parking or other purchases.
