On Oct. 14, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, Gametime and TickPick, along with their trade group, the Ticket Policy Forum, sued the District of Columbia in federal court and asked a judge to block a law that hasn’t kicked in yet. That law caps what you can pay for a concert or theater ticket on the resale market. It applies starting Jan. 1, 2027.
The law hasn’t started and the reviews are already in.
Here’s the short version. The D.C. Council passed the RESALE Act unanimously this summer. Now a federal judge gets to decide whether it survives, and the companies want an answer before New Year’s.
What the ticket resale law does
The Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment Act (yes, someone worked hard on that acronym) was introduced by Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen in April 2025. It became D.C. Law 26-181 on Sept. 25.
Let’s do the math. A resold ticket can cost at most 10 percent above face value, and the resale site’s fee is capped at another 10 percent. So a $100 ticket can resell for up to $110, plus a $10 fee, for $120 total. The original fees and taxes count as part of that $100.
The ticket resale cap covers live entertainment like music and theater. Sports and movie tickets are out. The cap applies to businesses and to regular people reselling a ticket. The law also bans speculative sales (listing a ticket you don’t own yet), requires all-in pricing, and makes anyone reselling more than 50 tickets a year get a license and a $25,000 surety bond.
What it doesn’t cap is the first sale. A provision that would have let the mayor regulate platform fees where tickets are first sold (the primary market) was removed by amendment. Separately, a year after the law takes effect, the mayor can move the resale cap anywhere from 0 to 20 percent above face value, and the fee cap from 5 to 20 percent. So 10 percent is the opening bid, not necessarily the final one.
What the resale sites argue
The complaint lists eight counts, from the Commerce Clause to the First Amendment to the Home Rule Act, the 1973 law that sets the limits of D.C.’s power. The companies say the law reaches sales where the buyer, seller and website are all outside D.C. They also say the law makes them publish an original price they often can’t verify. And they want the whole law thrown out, not just the cap.
Brian Berry, who runs the Ticket Policy Forum, says the Council “pulled it out of thin air” and that $4 on a $40 ticket can’t cover a site’s costs. He also told FOX 5 that “Ticketmaster got itself exempted from this law.” The FOX 5 story carried no response from Ticketmaster.
Two days later, a group of ticket brokers filed a second suit that goes after only the price cap. “A price cap doesn’t make tickets cheaper,” said Gary Adler, who leads the brokers’ group, NATP.
Two lawsuits in one week. Only one of them is trying to throw out the whole law.
What the law’s backers say
Allen told FOX 5 he isn’t surprised the companies are fighting back, “but they’re wrong.” He said the attorney general’s office vetted the bill and that resale companies use bots to scoop up tickets. He told NBC4 the law is about “leveling the playing field” for people who want to see a show.
Independent venues backed it. Audrey Fix Schaefer of I.M.P., which runs the 9:30 Club, said of the resellers, “They just want to keep taking advantage of everyone.”
Let’s check everyone’s math
Both sides brought numbers. Time for Stats 101, and everybody gets graded.
I.M.P. counted $13.9 million in resale listings for its venues in September, 92 percent of them above face value. But those are asking prices, not sales. A ticket listed at, say, triple face value that never sells didn’t cost anybody anything.
The brokers cite an industry-backed analysis saying D.C. buyers saved $6.1 million on resale in 2024 compared with primary prices, an average of $13 a purchase. TicketNews says it hasn’t verified that. And even if it holds, it compares resale with first-sale prices. It can’t tell you what a 10 percent cap would do, which is the actual question.
The resale sites also say fewer than 1 percent of their covered sales had both a D.C. buyer and a D.C. seller. That’s a point about the law’s reach, not about prices.
The closest thing to a referee is old. In 2018, the Government Accountability Office reported that, according to some state government studies, resale price caps generally weren’t effective because they were hard to enforce. That was eight years ago, and it wasn’t a test of D.C.’s design. So far, nobody’s numbers settle it.
What comes next
Judge Carl J. Nichols gave both sides until Oct. 16 to propose a briefing schedule and say whether they need a hearing. The resale sites have asked for a ruling by Dec. 10, which leaves time for an appeal before the law applies on Jan. 1.
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