House committee votes 36-0 to advance ticket bot bill
A unanimous vote in Washington has moved stricter rules for concert ticket sales one step closer to law.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 36-0 on September 16 to report the MAIN Event Ticketing Act to the full House, as amended. It was one of 16 bills advanced at the committee markup, according to Music Business Worldwide.
MAIN stands for Mitigating Automated Internet Networks for Event Ticketing. The House bill is numbered H.R. 2713 and was introduced on April 8, 2025. It is sponsored by Representative Diana Harshbarger, with Representative Troy Carter as original co-sponsor.
The bill would amend the Better Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016, known as the BOTS Act. That is the same law the Federal Trade Commission is using to sue Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
At the centre of the proposal is bot behaviour, the use of automated software to bypass posted limits and buy up tickets in bulk. The bill would require a ticket issuer that owns or operates an online ticket-sales service to maintain an access control system or other technological control to enforce those posted purchase limits.
It would also require issuers to tell the FTC about circumvention incidents they have actual knowledge of, no later than 30 days after discovery. The idea is to standardise how limits are enforced and how quickly regulators hear when they fail.
Penalties are spelled out in dollars. The bill sets minimum civil penalties of not less than $10,000 for each day a violation occurs or continues, plus not less than $1,000 per violation.
The FTC would also have new public duties. Within 180 days of enactment, it would have to open a public website for reporting ticket issuers that fall short. Within a year, it would have to publish guidance to help issuers comply.
For fans, this means the fight is about the on-sale itself. Purchase limits decide how many tickets one buyer can take in that first rush, and bots are built to break those limits before ordinary buyers get through.
The committee vote lands during a busy legal stretch for live music. On April 15, 2026, a New York jury found that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation illegally monopolised US live event markets, as reported by Reuters. The FTC has also filed a separate case against Ticketmaster alleging deceptive ticket resale practices.
The agency has taken other ticketing action as well. It sued ticket reseller Key Investment Group for evading purchase limits to buy thousands of tickets to live events. A US Senate committee also scheduled a ticket-pricing hearing featuring Kid Rock and a Live Nation executive, according to Reuters.
The House bill still needs a vote of the full House. A matching Senate bill, S. 196, was introduced on January 22, 2025.
