Vote moves ticket scalping out of the shadows on Aug. 1

But some fans wonder if it will push prices into the stratosphere.

By Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune

Last update: May 2, 2007 - 8:29 PM

Ninety-four years after Minnesota prohibited ticket scalping, the state is about to bring the shadowy secondary market in admissions to cultural and sporting events "into the light of day."

That's the way Rep. Chris DeLaForest, R-Andover, put it Wednesday as the House overwhelmingly approved his bill to legalize reselling tickets above face value and sent it to a receptive Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Only six DFLers and two Republicans dissented in a 124-8 vote for a change that Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, had sought unsuccessfully for nearly 20 years. A cosponsor of DeLaForest's repeal bill this year, Kahn said the scalping law wasted police resources on victimless transactions.

Kahn said the old law represented "the worst kind of socialist interference with the free market."

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said the governor plans to sign the bill, which would legalize ticket brokering on street corners, the Internet and almost anywhere in between on Aug. 1.

During a brief debate on the House floor, a few legislators said that a wide-open ticket market would drive up prices and exclude all but the wealthy from must-see events.

DeLaForest countered that more legal competition could bring some ticket prices down. And scalping laws haven't capped soaring street prices for high-demand tickets, he said.

"The market is the market," he said. "That's the bottom line. The law's not enforceable."

That's become increasingly apparent with the growth of online ticket brokerages, including Ticket King of Hudson, Wis., whose co-owner, a St. Paul resident, has expressed a desire to move the business to Minnesota once it's legal.

Wisconsin is among 41 states where scalping is allowed, DeLaForest said. Repeal, he said, will put Minnesota's ticket market on the same terms as most other areas of the economy. "We don't talk about scalping real estate or artwork or stocks and bonds or even baseball cards," he said.

The only remaining restrictions on scalping could be city requirements that scalpers obtain peddlers' licenses and observe reasonable limits on the time, place and manner of doing business, DeLaForest said. Consumer protection laws will continue to safeguard ticket buyers from counterfeiting and fraud, he added.

Six Minnesota professional sports teams and law enforcement leaders dropped their longstanding opposition to repealing the scalping law this year. The teams took a neutral stance noting what they called "significant legislative support" for the bill, but they also raised concerns about ticket fraud and public order around their box offices.

DeLaForest credited the Legislature's turnaround on the issue to "a true evolution in thinking" and a near-absence of resistance to repeal of a law that had lost favor at most points along the political spectrum. "Sometimes liberals and conservatives can share a healthy suspicion of government," he said. With the repeal, he added, "everybody wins."

Maybe not everybody.

Baseball fan Stephanie Allensworth, of Bloomington, complained in an e-mail to the Star Tribune that repeal will mean "good-bye to box-office prices forever" because "scalpers will buy up all the seats and then sell them for twice the price or more."I had to pay $85 a ticket for a $12 seat at Fenway Park," she added. "Do you think that Minnesotans will be willing to pay the price?"

But Jason Gabbert, an Apple Valley ticket broker who said he has sold high-demand tickets to police officers and a legislator, said that repeal of the scalping ban that dates to 1913 won't change much except what he called the chance of an "encounter with police at the most inopportune time."The vast majority of tickets for events in Minnesota aren't sold for more than face value," he added. "The interest is not high enough in sports locally to support a big-dollar ticket market. ... It's far easier to lose money in the Minnesota ticket business than it is to get rich."

Conrad deFiebre • 651-222-1673 • cdefiebre@startribune.com

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