NYC Councilman Justin Brannan (Indecision) Will Introduce a Bill to Ban Hidden Ticket Fees

Login to your online ticket retailer of choice (well, no choice, truly). Hit refresh over and over until the on-sale time hits. Look at what’s available. Select [expensive] seats. Proceed to checkout page… get socked by a whole bunch of “convenience charges” and miscellaneous fees that raise the overall price of your purchase considerably.

If you’re a music fan in 2018, this definitely happens to you on the regular.

Now NYC councilman Justin Brannan — the former guitarist of Indecision and Most Precious Blood who won a seat on the city’s lawmaking body last fall — plans to do something about it! On Wednesday he will introduce a bill that will put an end to the practice of ticketing sites waiting until a customer has already selected their tickets to reveal any extra fees. The practice will extend to concerts, sports and live events of all kinds, and would force ticket retailers to disclose any fees in advance, including in advertisements.

Explains Brannan:

“When I was a touring musician, live shows were about having fun and building a sense of community — not nickel and diming kids who like music.

“Ticket prices in our city are already through the roof. New Yorkers don’t need big retailers making things worse by hiding extra fees until the very end of a sale. Nobody wants to click on a ticket that costs $50, fill in their name, address, telephone number, email, and credit card information, and then find out it actually costs $100 or more.”

Brannan has already done plenty of great stuff in his first several months in office, most notably taking a stand against an NRA gathering in his Brooklyn district. I’m not sure the extent to which Brannan’s proposed legislation stands a chance of passing given the politics of city government and other considerations, but we will certainly keep you posted.

[via Lambgoat]