Share your voice with Congress.

Form a letter and other helpful information in the links below.

Urgent Advocacy Action Alert: Contact Your Senator Now!

Your congressional representatives need to hear from you! If you want Congress to enact comprehensive ticketing reform to protect consumers, empower creative economic development, and restore trust in the ticketing experience for fans and artists, voice your support today. Use the tool below to send a message to your House member and Senators to champion comprehensive ticketing reform legislation NOW.

Friends,

Please take 10 minutes to review this email and act on it if you have a representative involved in this legislative process.

I will offer my two-cents as someone who spent years in a venue, in ticketing, in customer service, and as an artist liaison. 

Describing "Speculative Tickets" as "fake" is true but I would offer a bit more insight, in case you are not familiar with this practice. For example, with Speculative Tickets a 3rd party reseller advertises that you can purchase "balcony" tickets, in rows G-M for $250. They are gambling that at the onsale or through priority access (which some of them have gained access to) they will get 6-10 tickets in that general area. It doesn't mean the customer HAS tickets in the Balcony G-M. It means the customer has paid for tickets wherever the 3rd party gets them. If the 3rd party gets tickets behind the stage, they can assign those to the customer and not offer any kind of explanation of the difference or any refund.

I had people who worked at venues come to me day of show for BIG shows saying their tickets would not work. I hated to ask, but did ask, where did you buy your tickets? Why they didn't go to our box office I will never understand. Anyway, every time this happened the customer would go online, type in a general "my venue + this show", and pick the first listing. 99% of the time, that first listing is NOT the venue or the show. But they have likely swiped logos and images so they can mimic the appearance.

This process steals experiences from customers, it robs the venue of its reputation when they can't "fix" it, and it takes money from the artist's wallet.

IMHO, this is a fight we all need to be part of for the sake of our industry. *stepping off my soapbox*

Please consider writing to your representative ASAP. Thank you for your time.

Cheers,

Christi Dortch, Executive Director

Tennessee Presenters 

615-497-4716

URGENT Advocacy Action Alert. We need you to contact your Senator NOW.

Dear APAP Member,

If you’re reading this email, you have a Senator on the Commerce Committee (see the list at the bottom of this email), and we need your help advocating for ticketing reform ASAP today!

This is Jenny Thomas, Director of Marketing and Communications at APAP. I also work on advocacy issues for APAP.

As APAP and the FIX the TIX coalition continue to work on comprehensive ticketing reform, we have just heard that the TICKET Act is quickly moving forward and will be brought to the Commerce Committee next week.

The TICKET Act is one of the bills being advanced by the predatory resellers. These resellers promote deceptive practices and siphon tens of millions of dollars away from artists and presenters every year.

Particularly concerning, the TICKET Act allows for spec tickets (these are tickets that resellers are selling even though they do not have a ticket to sell). If the TICKET Act passes, it will effectively make fake tickets legal, codifying it as federal law. We need you to help stop the forward movement of the TICKET Act.

APAP’s position is that we need comprehensive ticketing reform. We need the FIX the TIX plan that protects consumers, artists and venues and bans spec tickets. Spec tickets are fake tickets and should be banned, full stop.

Below please find everything you need to email your Senator's office:

• A template email to send to your Senator and their staff. If you have a relationship with the Senator from your state (listed below) or their staff, please feel free to add a personal note. Also, please add in any personal stories of patrons arriving with fake tickets, and why it’s imperative to protect consumers, artists, venues and presenting organizations.

• A grid with Senate staff emails and a tracking sheet. These are the contacts we need you to reach out to ASAP! Please add your name to the tracking sheet once you have sent your email.

• A side-by-side comparison of the current ticketing bills, including FIX The TIX for you to attach to your email to your Senator and their staff.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to me at communications@apap365.org if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Jenny Thomas

Director of Marketing and Communications

APAP

Fix The Tix Coalition

A broad coalition of live event industry organizations and professionals have formed to collectively advocate for a ticketing experience better than the nightmare many fans and artists currently navigate.

With representation from venues, promoters and producers, the performing arts, artists groups, recorded music, and independent ticketing companies, this coalition represents stakeholders who take on all the risk to create once-in-a-lifetime experiences and bring joy, employment, and economic impact to communities across America.

We are coming together to protect fans from price gouging and deceptive and predatory ticketing practices. There will be more to come from our coalition soon.

The Fix the Tix Plan for Congress

A detailed roadmap for how Congress can fix ticketing to protect consumers, elevate creative economic development, and restore trust in the ticketing experience for fans and artists.

We urge Congress to enact comprehensive legislation that safeguards consumers from fake tickets, price gouging, and other deceptive practices, provides transparency in ticket pricing, and restores integrity to the ticketing marketplace.

If you have questions and/or are interested in joining the coalition, please contact info@nivassoc.org.
For media inquiries, please contact NIVA@Luckybreakpr.com.