By Ivan Pereira
City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) certainly does, and he introduced a new bill last week to crack down on re-sellers who overinflate ticket prices.The Ticket Resale Consumer Fairness bill, which was formally introduced at the City Council's Stated Meeting on March 12, mandates that any place of entertainment receiving public funding must reserve at least 40 percent of tickets for sale for individual consumers.”It is my hope that this bill will operate as 'market-correction' legislation and level the playing field for working class New Yorkers,” Comrie said in a statement.Under Comrie's bill, the city's entertainment venues that receive public funding via tax abatements and other sources would be forced to reserve seats for individual buyers and publicly announce the number of tickets set aside for individuals. In addition, the bill would require those individual ticket sales to be limited purchases of no more than four tickets per day per individual consumer through both offline and online sales.The councilman said he grew concerned about ticket inflation in December when tickets for the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus “Best of Both Worlds” concert sold out within minutes in the metro area, forcing fans, and more importantly their parents, to look for new ways to see the teen pop star.Those ticket buyers were out of luck as seats that normally sold for $65 ended up selling for nearly 18 times the price by ticket sellers who bought huge quantities of seats with the intention of reselling them for profit, according to Comrie.”Like thousands of parents across this city, I have young children who are fans of Hannah Montana and other children's television stars. And I was outraged that unscrupulous ticket brokers would charge ridiculous prices to these concerts,” he said.The councilman's office conducted a survey of other public event ticket sales, such as New York Knicks basketball games and this summer's Billy Joel concert at Shea Stadium, and found that too often city consumers were being lucked out of their venue because of resale dealers. Some of those dealers use sophisticated techniques, such as advanced computer software to buy the tickets in bulk quickly from online retailers.Comrie added that the bill was not designed to hamper the entertainment industry rather it was done to give regular folks a chance to enjoy their shows.”I can't imagine that arenas will reserve 40 percent of the front-row seats to meet the mandate of this legislation,” he said. “So it's foreseeable that most of the premium seats to an event will still be subject to free market principles.”Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
