The following appeared on May 19, 2026, on Jake Lahut’s “Straight from the Hut” Substack blog:
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been executing a lobbying blitz across the country to push for nearly identical bills, which would set price caps on the secondary seller market. It’s a strategy that deflects the mounting public dissatisfaction against them, but it’s not working so far.
Ten state legislatures in 2026 — Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia — have abandoned various versions of price cap proposals. In a state like New York, the post-merger behemoth of Ticketmaster and Live Nation is spending $25,000 a month on lobbying services from Bolton St. Johns.
Read more here.