Massachusetts governor Maura Healey announced new legislation on Thursday focused on reigning in ticket scalping and limiting how much a concert ticket can be resold for on the secondary market.
Healey announced the “Great Divide Act” (a reference to the name of New England icon Noah Kahan‘s latest album) on Thursday, which if put into law would cap concert ticket resale prices at 110 percent of a ticket’s original face value, meaning a $100 ticket would only be able to be re-sold for at most $110. Beyond the face value pricing, the bill also stipulates that fees on resale sites cannot exceed 10 percent of the total ticket price. The bill would also outlaw “speculative tickets,” where brokers list tickets for sale that they don’t actually have yet.
Healey called the legislation “an act to close the great divide between ticket prices and actual affordability.”
Kahan himself provided a brief video statement that aired during the press conference, where he voiced his support for the new legislation. “The artist community and fans greatly benefit from limiting ticket scalping,” the singer said. “I love my fans and I want to protect them however I can. Artists alone could not tackle the market manipulation of secondary resellers, so thank you so much for making this a priority in Massachusetts.”
Kahan has been a vocal proponent in ticket affordability for music fans, also lending his voice for a similar bill that had passed in his home state of Vermont earlier this summer. Outside of legislation, for his latest tour,Kahan used an identity check software on Ticketmaster in an attempt to stop bots from buying up tickets, and he also implemented a face value exchange so that tickets can only be resold for the price they were originally purchased for.
Healey said she’d be placing the Great Divide Act into the state’s supplemental spending bill, and it still needs approval from the state’s legislature to go into effect.
“Far too many Massachusetts residents have experienced the pain of being excited to buy tickets to see their favorite singer or sports team, only to realize that resale prices and fees have driven up the cost to outrageous levels,” Healey said in a statement. “Or how about when you do purchase tickets from a reseller, only to get to the venue to realize the seller never actually transfers them to you? Enough is enough. We are taking action to lower ticket resale prices so Massachusetts fans can better afford to see their favorite performer or team.”
Kahan just played four sold-out nights at Fenway Park last week, and Healey had previously declared July 11, 2026 to be “Noah Kahan Day.”
Massachusetts marks the latest in an ongoing trend of states across the country seeking to adopt more aggressive policies to combat ticket scalping. Alongside issues like dynamic ticket prices, high fees and long online queues, the resale market is one of the most prominent areas that has caused significant fan frustration around the live music business.
Along with Vermont, fellow New England state Maine also adopted similar laws this year, while California and New York introduced pending legislation of its own as well. Washington, D.C.’s council unanimously passed a similar bill on Monday.