LITTLE ROCK — The fees that Ticketmaster adds to concert ticket prices violate the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a lawyer argued Thursday before the state Supreme Court.
An attorney for Ticketmaster argued that the law prohibits scalping but does not bar contracted ticketed vendors from charging fees for their services.
The high court heard oral arguments but did not immediately issue a ruling in a class-action lawsuit filed by Corey McMillan of Arkadelphia. The suit is pending in federal court, but a federal judge has asked the state Supreme Court to answer a question regarding state law.
The question is whether the Deceptive Trade Practices Act applies to an agent of a concert venue that sells tickets at a price higher than the advertised price of a ticket.
Arkansas Code 5-63-201 states in part that it is illegal to sell tickets to a music entertainment event “at a greater price than that printed on the ticket or the box office sale price plus any reasonable charge for handling or credit card use, whichever is greater.”
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McMillan claims Ticketmaster violated that law when it charged him $220 for four tickets to a show by country singer Jason Aldean at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock. The advertised price of the tickets was $42.75, but Ticketmaster’s fees raised the price to $55 each.
“When they get their receipt, it reads like a phone bill with all the additional charges,” McMillan’s attorney, Rodney Moore, told the justices Thursday.
Moore argued that Ticketmaster’s fees exceeded any reasonable charge for handling or credit card use. “I think they just are adding whatever they want to add because they can,” he said.
Chad Pekron, an attorney for Ticketmaster, told the justices that venues like Verizon Arena enter into agreements with companies like Ticketmaster to allow them to sell tickets over the Internet and charge “convenience fees.”
By buying his tickets through Ticketmaster, McMillan was able to avoid a 140-mile round trip to buy tickets in North Little Rock, Pekron said.
He argued that the law is aimed at scalpers who buy tickets and then resell them at a higher price than the initial sale price, but when Ticketmaster sells a ticket, that is the first sale, not a resale, because Ticketmaster does not buy its tickets from the venue.
“I don’t see ‘resale’ anywhere in here,” said Justice Donald Corbin.
Pekron replied that the term “box office sale price” clearly refers to the initial sale of a ticket. Justice Jim Gunter asked Pekron if Ticketmaster’s prices exceed box office sale prices.
“Ticketmaster is the box office,” Pekron answered, arguing that the box office is not just the physical box office at Verizon Arena but anywhere that an initial ticket sale occurs.
Pekron noted that the law refers to the price printed on a ticket “or” the box office price, and argued that the use of “or” implies that tickets can be sold legally at prices other than those printed on them — as long as the sale is not a resale. Moore disagreed with Pekron’s interpretation.
“The box office sale price is determined by the amount you can buy a ticket for at the (physical) box office,” he said.
Chief Justice Jim Hannah asked Moore if he had found any laws on the books in other states similar to Arkansas’ law on concert ticket prices. Moore said he had not found any that were similar enough to be relevant.