Election Day offers an opportunity for lawmakers to advance practical consumer protections that could fundamentally improve how Americans buy, receive and use tickets.
As Americans head to the polls today, there is no shortage of complicated issues awaiting the next Congress and state legislatures. But some opportunities to improve consumers’ lives are surprisingly straightforward.
Consider the experience of purchasing tickets to a concert, sporting event or other live event. A consumer pays for tickets but may not receive them until shortly before the event. They might be required to download an unfamiliar app, create an account with a company they never purchased from, or provide personal information simply to receive tickets they’ve already paid for.
And after completing all those steps, they may still wonder whether the tickets are legitimate.
Ticketing technology has made it easier than ever to securely deliver, transfer and authenticate tickets. Yet consumers continue to encounter delays, mandatory accounts, restrictive transfers and unnecessary requests for personal information. Some of these requirements serve little apparent purpose beyond allowing the original ticketing company to maintain control of the transaction, even after the consumer has paid for it.
That raises a fundamental question:
Who should control a ticket after the buyer has paid for it?
The buyer or the company that originally issued it?
At the National Association of Ticketing Professionals (NATP), we believe technology should protect the ticket and the buyer, not preserve unnecessary control for the company that originally sold it.
Two principles in particular deserve attention from policymakers: Open Transfer and Open Authentication. Together, they could represent one of the most meaningful improvements to consumer protection and competition in ticketing in decades.
Open Transfer: When Consumers Pay for Tickets, Give Them Control
Ticketing companies have invested heavily in technology that can securely issue, manage and transfer tickets. Yet consumers frequently encounter restrictions that prevent tickets from reaching their rightful recipients until shortly before an event. In some cases, tickets cannot be transferred to the buyer until the final 24 hours before an event, even when the consumer purchased them months in advance.
These delays are particularly frustrating when the tickets already exist and could be securely transferred to the purchaser. Unnecessarily withholding an available ticket places the interests of the primary ticketing company and the event organizers ahead of those of the paying consumer.
The principle should be straightforward: Once a ticket has been purchased and is available for delivery, the buyer should be able to receive it without arbitrary delays. That simple change would give fans greater confidence and eliminate unnecessary uncertainty about receiving their tickets.
Today, some consumers must create accounts with a ticket company they never chose to do business with simply to receive tickets. Depending on the type of event and how the tickets were purchased, they may encounter multiple apps, logins and account-verification requirements before accessing their seats. It’s a confusing process that ticket sellers and venue box office staff hear about regularly from frustrated fans.
Why in this day and age should receiving a ticket require establishing a new relationship with a company that wasn’t involved in the consumer’s purchase?
And why should that company collect additional personal information when secure alternatives are available that do not require that consumer to share their info?
This is particularly relevant given some of the notable data-security incidents. In 2024, Ticketmaster acknowledged a breach involving customer information stored in a third-party cloud database, including potentially compromised names, email addresses, phone numbers and encrypted payment information.
The lesson isn’t that account systems are inherently unsafe. It’s that companies should minimize the personal information they require and collect only what is reasonably necessary to complete a transaction. Secure transfers can be accomplished through verified electronic credentials, encrypted transfer links, authenticated digital wallets and systems that invalidate an existing ticket credential when a new one is issued.
Technology should make it easier for buyers to receive and use their tickets. It shouldn’t force them into a particular company’s commercial ecosystem.
Open Authentication: What If Every Ticket Could Be Verified?
Here’s an idea that could fundamentally change the ticket industry. What if every legitimate ticket could be authenticated directly with its original issuer, regardless of which qualified company was selling it?
Imagine purchasing tickets from your preferred ticket seller and knowing, before completing the transaction, that the tickets have been verified against the original issuer’s records. You would know the tickets exist, are valid and can be securely transferred into your possession.
That is the promise of Open Authentication.
The concept is straightforward: Establish secure, interoperable systems that allow qualified ticketing platforms to verify ticket authenticity and current status without requiring consumers to purchase or receive tickets exclusively through the original issuer’s marketplace.
Consider what happened in April 2024 at Laufey’s concert at Houston’s 713 Music Hall. According to the Houston Chronicle, more than 300 fans were turned away after presenting fraudulent or duplicate tickets. Some had spent considerable money and traveled to attend the concert, only to discover at the entrance that their tickets would not work. Similar problems occurred at Laufey’s Seattle concert that month, where local news reported more than 200 fans being turned away over invalid tickets.
A secure authentication system could have identified many of those invalid or duplicated tickets before consumers purchased them, rather than leaving fans to discover the problem at the venue entrance. These incidents illustrate a problem the industry should be working together to eliminate, although legislators may need to bring certain dominant players to the table to make that happen.
With comprehensive authentication and secure ticket reissuance, fraudulent or duplicated tickets could be identified before consumers arrive at the venue. Sellers could verify that tickets are genuine and available for transfer, while buyers could receive newly issued credentials that invalidate the previous ones.
A fraudster attempting to sell a fake ticket, an already-transferred ticket or a ticket they do not own would find it considerably harder to deceive consumers.And consumers would benefit from knowing their tickets had been verified before heading to the event.
The Technology Already Exists. Ticketmaster Is Helping Prove It.
Perhaps the most compelling argument for Open Authentication is that the industry is already demonstrating how it can work.
In April 2026, Ticketmaster announced an integration with CashorTrade, an independent face-value ticket resale platform. The arrangement allows eligible tickets to be authenticated against Ticketmaster’s original records and securely reissued to purchasers within CashorTrade. More recently, Ticketmaster’s Front Gate Tickets subsidiary expanded that approach to festival tickets, including events such as Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza.
According to the companies, tickets are authenticated directly with the original issuer, their original purchase prices are verified, and completed transactions result in tickets being reissued to buyers inside the CashorTrade app.
That’s a significant development. It demonstrates that an independent ticketing platform can work directly with a primary issuer to verify and transfer legitimate tickets without requiring the purchaser to retrieve them through the original issuer’s application.
NATP welcomes technological innovations that make ticketing safer and more convenient for consumers.
But this development raises an obvious question: If Ticketmaster can provide secure authentication to one independent resale platform, why shouldn’t comparable capabilities be available to all other ticketing companies? The primary tradeoff for Ticketmaster would be relinquishing some control over where consumers purchase resale tickets, rather than steering those transactions toward its own multibillion-dollar resale platform.
Ticket authentication should be a consumer-protection standard, not a privilege reserved for selected commercial partners that Ticketmaster chooses to allow into its ecosystem. A legitimate ticket should be eligible for authentication regardless of whether it is resold above or below its original purchase price. The price of a ticket has nothing to do with whether it is authentic.
An Opportunity for Legislators to Make a Real Difference
For years, lawmakers have debated ticket resale restrictions, pricing regulations and the competitive structure of the ticket industry. Those discussions remain important, particularly as federal antitrust proceedings continue to examine Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s market power.
But consumers shouldn’t have to wait for the courts to resolve those issues before benefiting from better technology and more reasonable ticketing practices. Congress and state legislatures have an opportunity to advance practical reforms that should appeal across political and industry lines.
NATP believes policymakers should consider three straightforward consumer protections:
- Prompt Ticket Delivery: require clear disclosure of delivery restrictions and ensure that tickets already available for secure transfer are delivered to paying consumers without unnecessary delays.
- Open Transfer: protect consumers’ ability to receive, use and transfer legitimate tickets without unnecessary account requirements, excessive personal-data collection or restrictions that favor the original ticket seller.
- Open Authentication: encourage secure, interoperable verification systems that allow qualified ticketing companies to authenticate and transfer legitimate tickets through fair, objective and nondiscriminatory technical standards.
Any authentication framework must include appropriate privacy protections, cybersecurity safeguards and mechanisms to prevent unauthorized transfers. But these requirements should protect consumers rather than provide justification for excluding legitimate competitors. These proposals could benefit the entire ticket industry.
Fans would gain confidence and convenience. Venues could reduce fraudulent admissions and ticket disputes. Artists could better protect their audiences. Legitimate ticket sellers could improve fulfillment and customer service, while primary ticketing companies could benefit from fewer fraudulent transactions associated with their events.
Most importantly, consumers would have greater freedom to choose where they purchase tickets without sacrificing security.
The Next Chapter of Ticketing Should Be About Empowering Fans
The ticket industry has spent years developing increasingly sophisticated technology to manage ticket distribution, pricing, transfers and access. It’s time to focus more of that innovation on empowering the people who purchase the tickets.
We should be moving toward an industry where tickets reach their rightful recipients promptly, consumers aren’t forced to surrender unnecessary personal information, and every legitimate ticket can be securely authenticated regardless of where it is purchased.
Open Transfer gives consumers greater control over the tickets they buy.
Open Authentication gives them confidence that those tickets are legitimate.
Together, these principles offer a practical path toward a more competitive, transparent and consumer-friendly ticket industry. On Election Day, that’s an agenda worth putting before lawmakers across the country. Now go vote today!
Buy it. Receive it. Own it. Transfer it.