March 20, 2007 22:25

Touting to become legal in New York?

State is set to try new approach to ticket reselling

Ticket touting is set to become legal in New York when the state’s anti-scalping law expires in June.

Broadway theatre owners and producers have long opposed the proposition to lift the state cap on how much tickets can be resold for, but reportedly recently dropped the opposition.

They are now proposing that a law be created where state-licensed organisations can resell tickets for an unlimited profit, based on the idea that the prices would not increase dramatically. They are reasoning that a simultaneous increase in the number of resellers would actually increase competition, which would result in lower prices.

State Governor Eliot Spitzer explained to the New York Post his reason for proposing the law change, saying: “My view has always been that the laws don't work.

"The reason the laws don't work is it's the only product I know where we are regulating the secondary market but we don't set a price for the primary market. It makes no sense.”

Touts, or ‘scalpers’ as they are known in the US, will still be banned from selling tickets within 1,500 feet of a venue.

--By our New York staff.
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