Michigan lawmakers renew bipartisan push for Taylor Swift-inspired ticket bot bills

Michigan House lawmakers are trying again to make sure the game isn’t rigged for ticket buyers with reintroduced bills to ban the use of software or bot programs to scalp online tickets and purchase them in large quantities.

The initial bills, sponsored by Rep. Mike McFall (D-Hazel Park) and Rep. Mike Harris (R-Waterford Township), were passed by the House last session, but died in the Michigan Senate. They were reintroduced in March and were back up for a first round of testimony on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Live Nation, a major player in concert promotion and ticket sales, said it supports the bills, but the secondary ticket reseller StubHub remained neutral.

Overall, the bills would ban people from creating bots that scrape websites for tickets and purchase them in large quantities. They would also ban users from using multiple accounts to buy tickets to circumvent or disable security features on websites to control sales volumes.

“We all have experience with trying to attend a concert or sports event only to be told that the event is sold out and only resale tickets are available at extreme markups,” McFall said. “Bad actors will purchase excessive amounts of tickets, commonly using bots with the intent of selling the tickets at prices that can be multiple times the original face value for popular artists like Taylor Swift. Tickets with value of $250 to $500 have been commonly resold for $5,000 to $10,000.”

McFall noted one instance of a ticket being resold for $17,000 in Arlington, Texas, for Swift’s widely popular Eras tour. He said it harms the entertainment industry but, more importantly, harms consumers by creating an unnecessary financial barrier.

The representative added that the bills would provide the Department of Attorney General with the means to investigate consumer complaints regarding scalped tickets and act against those who are misusing bots to buy several tickets at once.

Harris said a staffer wrote him a script to read in committee rife with Swift lyrics. He didn’t read it, much to the dismay of Rep. Kelly Breen (D-Novi), but said the package prioritizes the consumer.

“I think most of us here have constituents that have made comments or complaints about this,” he said.

Harris said his bill would empower the attorney general to investigate consumer complaints on ticket sales and provide clear penalties. If passed as written, the legislation would carry a civil fine of up to $5,000 for each violation.

Harris noted that one ticket sale purchase by a bot equaled one violation.

“These people are frauding the system and making it hard for the rest of us to actually take our families out and enjoy a good time at the concert,” he said. “As a father of six, yes, I have attended a Taylor Swift concert. That was my duty as a father of four girls. I believe these are meaningful safeguards that will increase transparency and ensure a much fairer purchasing process for people here in Michigan.”

Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-Springport) chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said that as a big Jimmy Buffett fan, she had a hard time getting tickets to his shows before she got on a special list, but could even then find them on a secondary reseller like StubHub. She wondered how the attorney general would begin to investigate instances where a show sold out quickly, and how would their office know if it was a case of a bot purchasing several tickets at once.

McFall said a person would have to file a consumer protection complaint and that the platform, whether it be Ticketmaster, Live Nation or some other seller, would have access to information on whether a bot or multiple accounts owned by the same person purchased the tickets.