Trump, With Child Rock, Indicators Government Order Concentrating on Ticket Scalpers

President Donald Trump desires to focus on “unscrupulous middle-men” who resell live performance tickets at an “huge markup.”

Trump, flanked by singer Child Rock, signed an government order within the Oval Workplace on Monday cracking down on “exploitative ticket scalping” and promising to vary the US’s stay leisure trade.

The order mentioned it might “rigorously implement” the Higher On-line Ticket Gross sales (BOTS) Act of 2016, which prohibits the sale of tickets obtained by bypassing buying limits on on-line websites.

Within the Oval Workplace, Child Rock, whose actual title is Robert James Ritchie, harassed the issue of individuals utilizing bots to purchase live performance tickets in giant volumes and promoting them at markups to make earnings.

The 54-year-old singer, sporting a loudly patriotic crimson and blue outfit for the event, thanked Trump for getting the order out in “lightning velocity.”

“I do know numerous artists and numerous followers who love, love concert events and music, are going to be very appreciative,” he mentioned.

The struggle for live performance tickets

Over the previous few years, the stay leisure trade has been hit by complaints of bots snapping up large portions of extremely sought-after tickets, leaving followers empty-handed.

The avalanche of bot consumers affected Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which ran from March 2023 to December 2024. In 2022, Dwell Nation, which owns ticketing platform Ticketmaster, noticed 14 million individuals attempting to purchase the tour’s presale tickets, far more than the 1.5 million “verified” followers anticipated to be within the on-line queue.

“We had 14 million individuals hit the positioning, together with bots — one other story — which aren’t purported to be there,” Dwell Nation’s chairman Greg Maffei advised CNBC in November 2022 whereas apologizing to followers unable to safe tickets.

Ticketmaster then canceled its normal public ticket sale, saying it had run out of tickets after the presale occasion, drawing ire from Swift’s fan base.

To make certain, Trump’s new government order is just not the primary governmental effort that crack down on concert-linked scams.

In February 2023, earlier than ticket gross sales for Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour kicked off, the Senate Judiciary Committee tweeted, “We’re watching, @Ticketmaster.”

In September 2023, the IRS launched a brand new legislation requiring ticketing websites like StubHub and Ticketmaster at hand over knowledge of sellers who make greater than $600.

Representatives for Trump didn’t reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.