On Wednesday, January 28, 2026, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Shopper Safety, Know-how, and Knowledge Privateness will convene a listening to titled “Inspecting the Impression of Ticket Gross sales Practices and Bot Resales on Live performance Followers.” On the heart of the witness record is Child Rock who bridges fan frustration, govt motion, and rising legislative priorities.
From the Oval Workplace to the Senate Listening to Room
The dysfunction within the U.S. ticketing market has not often been acknowledged extra plainly than within the Oval Workplace on March 31, 2025, when President Trump signed an Govt Order focusing on scalping and speculative ticket abuse. Standing alongside him, Child Rock articulated what thousands and thousands of followers and artists already felt: “I feel this can be a nice first step…. I might love down the highway if there’d be laws that we might really put a cap on the resale of tickets.”
President Trump captured the damaged social contract in stark phrases: “I see the artists… they exit with a $100 ticket, and it sells for $2,000 the next night time.” His emphasis was not merely about worth, however in regards to the erosion of the artist-fan bond: “Bob is extra within the followers and the individuals which might be having to pay loopy costs.”
That second issues now as a result of it set a coverage through-line: unchecked resale markets and bot-driven harvesting have turned entry to dwell occasions right into a rigged system. The Senate listening to is the place that narrative meets legislative scrutiny.
A Broader Panorama: States Taking Ticketing Reform into Their Personal Fingers
Whereas Congress now faces the problem nationally, state lawmakers haven’t waited. A rising variety of states have responded to speculative ticketing and resale abuses with enforceable reforms.
Most not too long ago, the California legislature took up AB 1349, which works additional than many prior state legal guidelines by empowering native authorities with enforceable instruments to control resale practices, ticket transparency, and anti-scalping enforcement on the native stage. The invoice displays the rising view that ticketing dysfunction is not only a pricing downside—it’s a governance hole that undermines the free market, native cultural economies and shopper belief. (California AB 1349 and the Case for Enforceable Native Ticketing Reform.)
These state experiments matter as a result of they present how legislative treatments—if correctly structured—can transfer past symbolic rhetoric to actual market influence by regulating resellers like StubHub. In addition they heighten the stakes for federal motion: if states can innovate significant protections, why shouldn’t the nationwide market?
The Witnesses and What They Characterize
Child Rock’s testimony brings the artist-fan perspective immediately into the coverage discussion board—the place ticketing has typically been handled as a slender shopper pricing situation, slightly than a systemic failure of market design.
The listening to additionally consists of testimony from coverage analysts and unbiased venue advocates. These voices underscore two important factors:
- All-in pricing alone isn’t adequate if speculative buying and selling, bots, and opaque distribution channels proceed to dominate.
- Smaller venues and promoters lack the leverage and infrastructure to safeguard honest entry, which means reform should account for market construction, not simply disclosure.
Collectively, the witnesses body the problem as one not solely about worth, however about who will get to take part in tradition on honest phrases.
A Second of Reckoning for Ticketing Coverage
This listening to isn’t simply one other Congressional occasion—it’s the logical subsequent step in a coverage arc that runs from state legislatures, to govt recognition, to nationwide scrutiny. The message is the system because it exists right now privileges hypothesis over connection, and intermediaries over communities.
Whether or not the Senate responds with binding reforms or extra symbolic gestures will decide whether or not this listening to marks a real inflection level however President Trump has made his coverage clear and Child Rock can inform you all about it.
