Iowa Senate Lawmakers vowed to make it a “cruel summer” for “bad blood” ticket hoarders after unanimously approving a bill Wednesday to penalize Iowa ticket buyers who hoard online tickets and artificially inflate prices.
The bill, Senate File 2322, would prohibit Iowa ticket buyers from creating bots, multiple emails, or using other means to buy more than eight tickets for an event, or the event’s posted ticket limit. The bill would also prohibit Iowa ticket buyers from attempting to circumvent sales-limiting systems like presale codes, queues, or waiting periods.
The bill authorizes the Iowa Attorney General to bring civil enforcement actions against anyone they believe to violate the bill for a fine of $10,000 per violation, not to exceed $100,000 in total.
Sen. Liz Bennett, D-Cedar Rapids, paid homage to worldwide pop star Taylor Swift during her remarks on the Senate floor, speaking in support of the bill. Swift was 2023’s most streamed artist, with more than 26.1 billion times in 2023. She has 14 albums with over 243 songs including “Bad Blood” and “Cruel Summer”, and her most recently-announced project — “The Tortured Poet’s Department” — set to release in April.
“If you screw around with Iowa ticket buyers, we’re going to have bad blood, and with that, I urge a swift passage of this bill,” Bennett said in remarks on the Senate Floor.
The bill comes more than a year after fans swarmed Ticketmaster’s website to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour.
The crash of the website and Ticketmaster’s mismanagement of the pre-sale launch sparked a national debate on the Live Nation platform’s monopoly on the ticket market, culminating in a U.S. Senate hearing on the matter and a U.S. Justice Department antitrust investigation.
The Iowa Hawkeyes also saw inflationary pressures on ticket prices.
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The ticket prices for the Iowa women’s basketball game against Michigan — where Iowa guard Caitlin Clark became the NCAA Division I all-time women’s basketball leading scorer — were going for upward of $1,000.
“If I wanted to witness history being made last Thursday, I could have gone on to a couple of the internet ticket sales and bought hundreds of tickets for anywhere between $300 to $2100,” Sen. Jeff Reichman, R-Montrose, said. “With this simple, short, but very potentially impactful legislation, my hope is that we keep costs down.”