{"id":1,"date":"2026-07-16T00:13:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blognatp.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2026-08-10T20:14:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T20:14:43","slug":"laws-persist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/?p=1","title":{"rendered":"Thirty Years Later, the Folly of Anti-Scalping Laws Persists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Three decades ago, Dr. Marianne Jennings and I published an article styled <\/a>The Folly of Anti-Scalping Laws<\/a> in the Cato Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring\/Summer 1995.) Therein we argued that imposing artificial constraints in the form of price caps on the resale of event tickets ultimately harmed consumers. That fundamental economic reasoning remains true today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, as high-profile tours and high-stakes tournaments dominate the headlines, we see well-intentioned but misguided policymakers rushing to revive these failed price controls. When analyzing caps on event tickets, we must ask a fundamental question: What problem are we actually trying to solve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are consumers asking for government-mandated price ceilings? Or are they asking for a marketplace defined by ticket authenticity, transparent pricing, reliable delivery, and robust buying options? History and economics tell us that price caps achieve none of the latter. Instead, they inevitably break the engine of a healthy market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When considering caps on event tickets, two fundamental ideas are at the forefront. The first is rooted in F. A. Hayek\u2019s seminal 1945 article, \u201cThe Use of Knowledge in Society<\/a>.\u201d Hayak demonstrated that top-down price controls are far more harmful than beneficial in every case. While price controls create a handful of arbitrary \u201cwinners,\u201d society as a whole suffers far more losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second is that for many major events, the initial face-value ticket prices are\u00a0 set below true market demand. Artists and sports teams often do this intentionally. They may feel they have a \u201ccovenant\u201d with fans to be \u201cfair\u201d, and keep face-value prices accessible; they might use ticket prices to serve as a loss leader for concession and merchandise sales; or they may simply want guaranteed, rapid sell-outs to show popularity and to build up demand for future shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because initial prices are artificially low, market forces inevitably take over and arbitrage happens. But contrary to popular political rhetoric, the secondary market is not merely a playground for brokers looking to buy low and sell high. In fact, industry data reveals a reality that legislators often ignore: <\/a>62% of tickets sold on the secondary market actually go for below face value<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secondary market isn\u2019t just about premium markups for sold-out mega-concerts. For most live entertainment, it serves as a vital consumer safety net. It offers fans unparalleled flexibility when their plans change, provides a highly competitive environment that drives prices down for lower-demand games and shows, and guarantees secure, verified delivery infrastructure that primary box offices often fail to provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When \u201ctrue fans\u201d feel that secondary market prices are unfair, they naturally appeal to eager politicians to implement price controls. It\u2019s interesting to note that politicians are willing to cap ticket prices in the name of \u201cfairness,\u201d yet are completely silent on the outrageous price-gouging happening inside the stadium. If we\u2019re going to look closely at what fans are forced to pay, let\u2019s look at the whole picture. Sports teams and venues frequently turn a blind eye to skyrocketing prices for stadium parking, concessions, and merchandise. Furthermore, primary ticketing platforms routinely utilize dynamic pricing to capture peak market value for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More fundamentally, the government is poking into an area in which it has no control over excess market demand or limited supply. In terms of supply, only artists and promoters hold the keys. They choose the venue size and the number of tour dates. Indeed, if artists want to maintain their special \u201ccovenant\u201d with fans without letting secondary ticket prices explode, why not add more shows to meet the demand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, if an artist can only play one venue on a specific date, they could have \u201ctrue fans\u201d line up physically, sell one ticket per person, and escort them directly to an assigned seat with zero transferability. But venues and artists don\u2019t want to revert to the 19th<\/sup> century—it is a logistical nightmare and commercially restrictive.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price caps on event tickets have failed repeatedly in the United States since the 1850s for a simple reason: they do not change the laws of supply and demand. They only drive the market underground. When you criminalize the natural market value of a ticket, you don\u2019t lower prices for fans, you simply shift the transaction away from secure, transparent platforms with consumer guarantees and push it into the digital shadows of unverified social media scams and unregulated street corners. It is costly to ferret out secondary sellers, and historically, prosecutors have far more serious public safety priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If legislators choose to go down the path of government price-fixing for entertainment, they open a dangerous Pandora\u2019s box. If the state can cap the resale price of a concert ticket, what stops it form capping the price of a hotel room during a major convention, or ride-share fares during a rainstorm?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than chasing the failed economic ghost of price caps, policymakers should focus on practical, pro-consumer guardrails that actually protect the public. This means recognizing that professional ticket sellers don\u2019t simply provide inventory, they provide the market expertise, consumer convenience, and reliable post-sale service that a healthy marketplace requires. This looks like all-in transparency on fees across the entire ticketing ecosystem, targeting bad actors who use malicious software to bypass security, and protecting open transferability so a consumer has the right to buy, give away, or resell their property freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time to move past the rhetoric of price controls and focus on solutions that actually serve live entertainment fans. Free markets, backed by strong consumer protection laws, remain the only viable ticket in town. Ultimately, price caps fail because the market has, and always will, continue to develop new ways around government controls, and arbitragers are simply too clever to sit still when there are profits to be made. Enacting these caps is a waste of time and money if the goal is to improve the consumer experience. In the end, it is self-congratulatory PR that has no place in our free enterprise society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three decades ago, Dr. Marianne Jennings and I published an article styled The Folly of Anti-Scalping Laws in the Cato Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring\/Summer 1995.) Therein we argued that imposing artificial constraints in the form of price caps on the resale of event tickets ultimately harmed consumers. That fundamental economic reasoning remains true today. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_block_theme_hide_title":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,15,13],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumer-protection","tag-opinion","tag-policy-legislation","without-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"blognatp","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.natp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}