OMAHA, NE (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — A Nebraska State Senator Gwen Howard has announced plans to introduce a bill that would work to level the playing field for consumers in their efforts to get event tickets directly from the box office instead of a secondary ticket broker.
Pursuant to this goal, Howard's bill would limit ticket sales to six per purchaser for the first 48 hours of sale, and require that the tickets be purchased in-person rather than online or on a telephone. The new legislation would only apply to venues that recieved public funding distributed through the Local Civic, Cultural and Convention Center Financing Fund, which was established in 1999 to facilitate taxpayer support the development public performance spaces and help underwrite the Qwest center.
Both of these measures would serve to make a strong secondary broker market financially untenable but at what price? Some observers like Roger Dixon, the CEO at the Qwest Center in Omaha, see the likely outcome as nothing short of "nightmarish," the World Herald reported.
According to the World-Herald, Dixon foresees huge traffic snarls, problems with parking and people camping out at the venue in order to secure tickets for a big concert.
"This could cost us business," Dixon told the World-Herald, "Promoters will choose not to use our facility."
Sen. Howard isn't the first public official to make an issue out of the growing secondary ticket market but her approach seems to ignore the underlying issue which has been the repeal of so-called "scalping" laws, which limited ticket resale prices to at or near face value of the ticket. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
