Citing 'bad blood,' Iowa Senate passes bill banning bots from buying up concert tickets
Hoping to avoid a cruel summer for Iowa concertgoers facing high ticket prices, the Iowa Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday banning the use of online bots to purchase concert tickets.
"Far too often, it is nearly impossible for regular citizens to purchase event tickets online because of the utilization and creation of bots," the bill's floor manager, Sen. Kerry Gruenhagen, R-Walcott, said. "These bots flood websites selling event tickets, clog up the servers and gobble up all the tickets."
Senate File 146 is intended to make it easier for Iowans to buy tickets for concerts, sporting events and other activities by banning the use of automated software programs that buy more than the allowed number of tickets and sell them back to consumers at inflated prices.
Several other states, including Arizona, Michigan and Minnesota, have advanced their own versions of what are sometimes known as "Taylor Swift bills," because of the difficulties Swifties faced in buying tickets for the artist's mega-successful Eras Tour in 2023 and 2024.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said, "I know for a lot of Taylor Swift fans, this will be an important bill."
"Iowans have some bad blood with ticket bots and price gouging," she said. "In the past, the ticket bots have run rampant. And the consumer? You’re on your own, kid."
She said forcing Iowans to pay high prices to buy tickets on resale "could spell death by a thousand cuts for our entertainment industry and a gold rush for those creating these bots."
"As my constituents and colleagues can agree, this is karma for ticket bots," she said. "Call it what you want, but it doesn’t take a mastermind to know this bill would be a step in the right direction for Iowa’s consumers."
The bill bans the creation of a bot to buy more than the maximum number of tickets allowed per event, or to use multiple email addresses, IP addresses or accounts to buy more than the number of tickets allowed.
The legislation also bans using bots to circumvent or disable an electronic queue, waiting period or presale code, or to disable any security measure designed to enforce the limit on ticket sales.
Ticket sellers would have to report suspected violations within five calendar days, and the Iowa attorney general would have the authority to bring lawsuits to enforce the law.
The bill isn't out of the woods yet. It still needs to pass the Iowa House to become law.
Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on X at @sgrubermiller.