California Ticketing Reform Bill AB 1720 Fails in State Senate

California’s legislative attempt to rein in the wild west of ticket scalping has stalled. On Thursday, August 13, the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee chose not to advance Assembly Bill 1720, effectively killing the state’s most comprehensive ticketing reform bill to date. Originally introduced in February by State Assemblymember Matt Haney, AB 1720 aimed to cap resale prices for concerts, theater, and comedy shows at face value plus a 10% markup. Sports tickets were notably excluded from the proposal. The bill was designed to kill the financial incentive for predatory scalping bots and professional middlemen. In a statement provided to Billboard, Haney expressed his disappointment, noting that "this outcome doesn’t change the reality that fans, artists, and venues are losing out while middlemen extract more and more profit." The reality is simpler: the secondary ticketing lobby remains undefeated. Expecting state legislatures to solve the live music industry's structural greed is a fantasy. While artists like Noah Kahan throw their weight behind similar legislation in Massachusetts, the defeat of AB 1720 in the nation's entertainment capital proves that policy changes are easily choked out behind closed doors. For now, California music fans looking to catch live shows will have to keep budgeting for exorbitant, unregulated markups on the secondary market.