Massachusetts governor Maura Healey announced new legislation on Thursday focused on reigning in ticket scalping and limiting how much a concert ticket can be resold for on the secondary market.
Healey announced the “Great Divide Act” (a reference to the name of New England icon Noah Kahan‘s latest album) on Thursday, which if put into law would cap concert ticket resale prices at 110 percent of a ticket’s original face value, meaning a $100 ticket would only be able to be re-sold for at most $110. Beyond the face value pricing, the bill also stipulates that fees on resale sites cannot exceed 10 percent of the total ticket price. The bill would also outlaw “speculative tickets,” where brokers list tickets for sale that they don’t actually have yet.
Healey called the legislation “an act to close the great divide between ticket prices and actual affordability.”
Kahan himself provided a brief video statement that aired during the press conference, where he voiced his support for the new legislation. “The artist community and fans greatly benefit from limiting ticket scalping,” the singer said. “I love my fans and I want to protect them however I can. Artists alone could not tackle the market manipulation of secondary resellers, so thank you so much for making this a priority in Massachusetts.”
