Minnesota governor signs new ticket resale bill into law

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has signed into law a new bill that aims to make ticket resale more transparent in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

The bill, SF0759, requires promoters, venues and others to release to the general public all available tickets for an event, and the law prohibits primary ticket companies, like Ticketmaster Entertainment, from redirecting customers to secondary market sites, like the company’s TicketsNow subsidiary.

The new law will take effect on August 1.

Democratic state Rep. Joe Atkins sponsored the bill, which he wrote after Ticketmaster’s debacle with the sale of Bruce Springsteen tickets earlier in the year. The company allegedly redirected customers from its Web site to TicketsNow, where tickets sell at a premium, and after complaints in New Jersey Ticketmaster settled with state officials for $350,000 but without admitting to any wrongdoing.

Government officials throughout the country have used the perceived unavailability of Springsteen tickets as a rallying cry to try to get ticket resale laws changed, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Springsteen tickets have been selling at bargain prices throughout the country, and in St. Paul, MN, where The Boss played earlier this week, tickets were not only reportedly available for below face value on the secondary market, the venue was still selling face value tickets the day of the concert.