Federal ticketing reform moved another step toward the House floor September 16th when the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 36-0 to advance the MAIN Event Ticketing Act, legislation designed to strengthen federal enforcement against ticket bots and attempts to evade online purchase limits.
H.R. 2713, formally the Mitigating Automated Internet Networks for Event Ticketing Act, would expand the Better Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016, better known as the BOTS Act. It would place new responsibilities on ticket issuers to maintain technological controls around purchase limits, report known circumvention to the Federal Trade Commission and strengthen penalties for violations.
The House committee record confirms the September 16th markup and unanimous vote. The measure can now move toward consideration by the full House, although no floor vote has been scheduled.
The timing puts the legislation unusually close to an active fight over the law it would strengthen. The FTC and seven states are already suing Live Nation and Ticketmaster under the existing BOTS Act and consumer-protection laws, while Live Nation supports the MAIN Event legislation and disputes the government’s allegations against it.
The Bill Would Give the BOTS Act More Teeth
Congress already made circumventing online ticket-purchase controls illegal when it passed the BOTS Act in 2016. MAIN Event would add more explicit duties for companies operating ticket-sales systems.
- Purchase controls: Ticket issuers would have to maintain technological systems designed to enforce posted ticket limits.
- FTC reporting: Known circumvention would generally need to be reported to the agency within 30 days of discovery.
- Stronger penalties: Violations could trigger substantially higher civil penalties, with additional consequences for intentional conduct.
- Consumer complaints: The FTC would establish a public reporting system and eventually issue compliance guidance.
Under the committee version, ticket issuers that own or operate online ticket-sales services would have to maintain access controls, security measures or other technology intended to enforce their stated purchase limits.
Known circumvention would create another obligation. Companies would generally have 30 days after discovering an incident to report it to the FTC and would be expected to take reasonable steps to improve the systems that were bypassed.
Music Business Worldwide details minimum civil penalties in the committee version of at least $10,000 for each day a violation occurs or continues, plus at least $1,000 for each violation. Intentional violations could bring an additional minimum penalty of $10,000 each.
For concertgoers, the target is familiar: high-demand tickets disappearing rapidly when automated tools or sophisticated broker operations find ways around limits intended to keep one buyer from accumulating large blocks of inventory.
Purchase Limits Sit at the Center of the Fight
Ticket limits sound simple until a major tour goes on sale.
An artist or promoter might restrict purchases to four, six or eight tickets per customer. Enforcing that rule can involve account information, payment methods, device identification, security systems and other controls designed to recognize when the same buyer is attempting to return repeatedly.
MAIN Event focuses on attempts to circumvent those systems, particularly through automated applications.
At its September 1st subcommittee markup, Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Gus Bilirakis described the legislation as an effort to crack down on bots and other actors that have made concert-ticket buying unfair to consumers.
The official markup record shows H.R. 2713 advancing from the subcommittee as amended before reaching the full Energy and Commerce Committee two weeks later.
One disagreement concerns where illegal circumvention begins. Secondary-ticketing advocates support stronger enforcement against automated fraud but have warned against writing private ticket-platform rules so broadly that violating a seller’s terms could effectively become a federal offense without defeating an actual technological control.
The Coalition for Ticket Fairness welcomed stronger BOTS Act enforcement after the 36-0 vote while urging Congress to preserve competition and consumer choice.
Nearly everyone involved can oppose illegal bots while still disagreeing sharply over how much control primary ticket sellers should have over what happens after a ticket is purchased.
The FTC Is Already Testing the Existing Law
The BOTS Act is not sitting unused while Congress debates how to strengthen it.
The FTC and seven states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in September 2025, alleging deceptive pricing practices and violations connected to ticket-purchase limits and resale. The case remains pending.
According to the FTC case record, the government alleges that Ticketmaster represented its ticket limits as strict even though brokers routinely exceeded them, then allowed millions of tickets obtained beyond artists’ limits to be sold on its resale marketplace at higher prices.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster deny wrongdoing and have sought dismissal.
The case is separate from the Justice Department’s antitrust litigation involving Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The FTC action centers on alleged deceptive practices and the BOTS Act rather than the broader competition questions at issue in the antitrust case.
That distinction matters because MAIN Event would amend the same 2016 law the FTC is already invoking.
Live Nation nevertheless supports the legislation. In previous correspondence with lawmakers, the company rejected allegations that it colluded with brokers to circumvent ticket limits while warning that a requirement to report every attempted circumvention could become difficult to administer across Ticketmaster’s systems.
The company therefore occupies an unusual position: backing stronger federal anti-bot legislation while contesting the government’s interpretation and application of the existing law in court.
Live Nation Is Not the Only Target
Federal BOTS Act enforcement reaches beyond Ticketmaster.
In July, the FTC announced a $300,000 settlement with ticket broker Elite Events and its operators over allegations that they bypassed purchase limits to obtain tickets to high-demand events.
The agency’s entertainment enforcement record also includes a pending case against Key Investment Group. A federal judge declined to dismiss that action in April, allowing the government’s BOTS Act claims to continue without deciding their ultimate merits.
Those cases show that Congress is not creating an enforcement system from scratch. MAIN Event would add duties and penalties while regulators and courts continue determining how the existing statute applies in practice.
The TICKET Act Tackles a Different Problem
MAIN Event is only one piece of the federal ticketing debate.
The TICKET Act passed the House 409-15 in April 2025 and was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on September 16th, 2025. It remains awaiting further Senate action.
Where MAIN Event concentrates heavily on bots, purchase limits and enforcement, the TICKET Act addresses other parts of the buying experience, including all-in pricing and speculative ticket sales.
Speculative ticketing occurs when a reseller advertises a ticket it does not yet possess, intending to obtain it later after a customer has already paid.
The House legislation generally prohibits that practice but includes an exception for certain services obtaining tickets on a buyer’s behalf. Independent venue and artist organizations argue that the exception could allow behavior they consider speculative ticketing to continue under another structure.
Senate versions of both ticketing proposals have also advanced to the legislative calendar, but neither has received a final Senate floor vote.
The overlapping measures mean Congress is addressing several different parts of ticket buying and resale rather than considering one all-encompassing federal ticketing bill.
Independent Venues Want Stronger Resale Rules
For the National Independent Venue Association and the Fix the Tix coalition, stronger bot enforcement is only part of the desired overhaul.
NIVA backed MAIN Event when it advanced through the House subcommittee earlier in September, arguing that stronger enforcement against illegal ticket bots would help protect fans and the live-entertainment ecosystem.
The organization has simultaneously pushed Congress to go further on the secondary market.
In a March letter concerning federal ticketing legislation, Fix the Tix urged lawmakers to close what it considers the speculative-ticket loophole, strengthen price transparency and impose tighter resale restrictions.
Two separate proposals are important here. The coalition supports limiting the resale price of a ticket to its original total cost, while separately supporting a 10% cap on fees charged by secondary-market services.
Neither proposal is part of the MAIN Event Ticketing Act itself.
Similar approaches are appearing at the state and local level. California proposals backed by NIVA have included resale restrictions, while Washington, D.C., approved legislation in July limiting resale prices and banning speculative sales.
NIVA has also cited research estimating that resellers add billions of dollars annually to the cost of live music and sports tickets. Its August statement uses that research to support face-value resale limits and restrictions on secondary-market fees.
Primary ticket sellers, resale platforms, brokers, venues and artists do not necessarily agree on those policies. That makes the secondary market a separate fight from the broader consensus around stopping automated ticket fraud.
A 36-0 Vote Still Leaves Several Steps
Unanimous committee approval gives MAIN Event bipartisan momentum, but it does not make the bill law.
H.R. 2713 still needs consideration by the full House. If representatives pass it, lawmakers would ultimately need to move the legislation through the Senate process and resolve any differences before a final measure could reach the president.
The Senate companion has already advanced to the legislative calendar but has not received a floor vote.
No House floor date has been announced for MAIN Event, MBW notes.
For the live-music business, the September 16th vote is therefore a meaningful procedural advance rather than a completed overhaul of federal ticketing law.
Several fights are now converging around it. Congress is considering stronger anti-bot enforcement while regulators are litigating under the existing BOTS Act, independent venues are pushing for stricter resale rules and ticketing companies are arguing over where federal enforcement should stop.
The 36-0 committee vote settles none of those larger disagreements. It does put another federal ticketing bill one step closer to the House floor.