Who would have thought that a concert by Disney star Hannah Montana would draw the attention of the attorney general?
On Oct. 1, it officially became legal to scalp tickets in the state after the Connecticut General Assembly voted to repeal a former statute prohibiting the act. Yet, just weeks after Connecticut allowed scalping to take place, a concert aimed at teens and tweens mucked up everything.
Hannah Montana, the fictional character on a Disney show played by actress/singer Miley Cyrus, will perform Dec. 19 at the Hartford Civic Center. It’s a date circled by many young girls wishing to see their favorite star.
But prices for the tickets on ticket resellers, such as StubHub, skyrocketed into the hundreds and thousands of dollars, a price that caused an uproar among the parents and officials in the cities hosting the concert, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is among those unhappy with the situation.
“The ticket scalping law was repealed and it greatly restricts our authority to protect consumers,” Blumenthal said. “We’re going to push for the reenactment of the ticket scalping law.”
The attorney general has never been in favor of allowing ticket resellers to jack up ticket prices, evident when he pushed StubHub to install a pop-up window that informed Connecticut residents that scalping was a crime.
But the argument from the ticket resellers is simply that scalping has created jobs in the state and allows state-based companies to compete on equal footing with resellers located elsewhere.
If there is an expert on Connecticut ticket reselling, it is Don Vaccaro, CEO of Vernon-based TicketNetwork.
The company and its lobbyist firm Murtha Cullina pushed hard for the scalping law to be repealed and would push just as hard to make sure the law remains repealed.
Even when the law was in effect, out-of-state resellers could take part in scalping as long as it didn’t take place in Connecticut. Obviously, with its headquarters in Vernon, TicketNetwork was shut out of its own market.
“It would be an anti-business stance to reinstate the law,” said Vaccaro. “It would hurt our ability to do business, yet out-of-state companies would still have access to our markets.”
During testimony earlier this year on the topic, Ticketmaster, the original seller for many events, said it had zero employees in the state. TicketNetwork employs about 150 in the state, and StubHub employs about 100.
“[Reenacting the law] would penalize Connecticut companies and employees,” said Vaccaro. “It is so out of tune with new market economics that I can’t imagine it would happen.”
There is also the matter of an investigation by Blumenthal’s office into possible anti-trust violations or collusion attempts to artificially inflate prices.
“If there’s collusion between any sellers or ticket scalpers, we could take actions for fines or penalties,” Blumenthal said. “We are continuing to review the situation.”
Vaccaro said the high prices for tickets are a result of high demand and a limited number of tickets available.
“There were only about 4,000 tickets to the show that were actually released to the public. The rest were set aside for fan clubs by Disney,” he said. “The attorney general’s office knows this and the I believe the investigation should be focused on the primary ticket sellers.”
Sean O’Leary is a Hartford Business Journal staff writer.
