Michigan Legislators Work To Lift Ban On Ticket Scalping

The ban on ticket scalping in Michigan could be going away in the future.

Currently in Michigan, reselling tickets for more than face value without permission could land you a misdemeanor. However, new bills are working to change that. The new Senate bills 384 and 385 would change how reselling tickets might work. The bills would legalize the reselling of individual event tickets, but ban other means of price gouging.

Under the new bills, the use of bots and deceptive domain names would be banned. These methods make it easy for scalpers to get around things like ticket limits which end up hiking the cost of concerts and games. This new legislation would make using this type of software a misdemeanor that could carry a punishment of 93 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000. 

These two bills passed the vote in the House of Representatives in votes of 93-12 and 91-14. Now we have to wait and see if the Senate will give final approval and then it would be sent off to be signed into law by Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

I think these are needed changes when it comes to ticket sales in Michigan. Keep in mind, I am in no way for making a profit off the resale of tickets. I think that is BS! If you need to sell your tickets, that's fine, just do it at face value. The bigger problem is when people use these types of software to snatch up all the tickets to resell for a profit. People who do that are lower than dirt. If you have tried to buy tickets online for anything before, you understand how awful this is. Seeing tickets on resale sites for 10 times the face value is just disgusting.

Source: MLive