NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The 114th General Assembly has gaveled in, and lawmakers have already filed legislation aimed at changing the way ticket sales operate in Tennessee.
Nashville Sen. Heidi Campbell (D) filed a bill that would ban the sale of “speculative tickets” in the state. According to Campbell, the bill would prohibit any ticket reseller from posting a ticket for a specific seat for sale if they do not actually have that seat available.
The hope, Campbell told News 2, is to protect ticket buyers in the ticket resale market.
A speculative ticket, according to Campbell, occurs when a ticket reseller sells a ticket for an event before they actually have that seat available. They may also buy a bulk amount of tickets and resell them in multiple places “with the idea that they’re going to take the highest bid for a ticket.”
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“It’s not a straight transaction with a speculative ticket. In other words, you are not buying a specific seat and having confirmation that you’re going to get that seat,” she told News 2. “This creates problems for the consumer because we have a lot of instances where you have people who bought tickets and they go to the show or to the game and find out that their ticket is actually not valid.”
While sometimes buyers receive refunds on those ticket sales, Campbell said the value of a refund is potentially “negligible” if you purchased a ticket for an event out of state and have to buy plane tickets and a hotel for the event.
With as many entertainment venues as Nashville has, Campbell said the opportunity for both concert-goers and artists alike to be affected by the sale of speculative tickets is high.
“Nobody wants to buy a ticket and find out that they can’t use it,” Campbell said.
Additionally, Campbell said speculative tickets allow for resellers to take advantage of the artists themselves to a degree, making money off of them to the artists’ detriment.
“Of course, artists in our city and the state of Tennessee don’t like to know that some of the people that are wanting to come and see their shows are having that experience, because it reflects negatively on them,” she said.
The difficult part will be in the enforcement, according to Campbell, as jurisdictional boundaries cannot be crossed by law enforcement agencies.
“As specific as you make the legislation, it’s still difficult for the AG or people who are required to enforce this to really determine exactly how that works from a jurisdictional standpoint,” Campbell told News 2.
To that end, Campbell said she would love to see federal action taken on behalf of all American consumers.
“This should be a federal law,” she said. “I think the more states that pass laws like this, better chance we’ll have of getting it over the line at the federal level.”
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May of 2024 that addressed several ticketing issues, including speculative tickets. The TICKET Act—short for the “Transparency In Charges for Key Events Ticketing” Act—mandated all ticket sellers to include all fees upfront along with the all-in price in addition to prohibiting speculative ticket sales. The Senate, however, took no action on it before that legislative session concluded.
Campbell said she hopes her measure will be supported by members of both parties, as her previous legislation on ticket sales did last session.
“We passed legislation last year to require ticket transparency, and that got unanimous support,” Campbell said. “I don’t think there was a single vote against it, so I’m hoping it’ll be the case with this as well.”
