National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance Urge Congress to Ban Ghost Tickets As World Cup Ticketing Meltdown Spreads Across U.S.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) and Fan Alliance today sent a joint letter to House and Senate leadership calling on Congress to ban the sale of speculative, or "ghost," tickets and to enact price gouging protections on all resale tickets sold in the United States in the wake of countless fans paying thousands of dollars for World Cup tickets and not making it into the matches. The letter went to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer. The letter can be accessed HERE.
The letter was signed by Stephen Parker, Executive Director of the National Independent Venue Association, and Donald Cohen, Executive Director of Fan Alliance. It includes more nearly two dozen exhibits illustrating how World Cup fans are being defrauded by an unchecked U.S. resale market.
Less than a week into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, fans who paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for tickets are being turned away at stadium gates across the country because they never received working tickets from predatory resellers. The letter documents dozens of first-hand accounts gathered in just the past week, including families left standing outside Foxboro, MA and Arlington, TX with nothing to show for their money but unrecoverable travel costs. A ghost ticket, as the letter explains, is a listing or sale of entry to a live event that the reseller does not actually own or possess.
NIVA, Fan Alliance, and a coalition of artists, fans, and live event organizations have been warning about exactly this since the 2022 Taylor Swift Eras Tour on-sale collapse. As the letter puts it:
"We warned that consumers would purchase tickets that did not exist. We warned that families would travel thousands of miles only to discover their tickets could not be delivered. We warned that refunds would not make consumers whole after airfare, hotels, rental cars, parking, and other travel expenses. Unfortunately, every one of those warnings has become a reality on the world's biggest sporting stage."
– Parker and Cohen in the Letter to Congress
The letter also makes a point that often gets lost in the World Cup headlines. This same harm happens every single day at independently owned music venues, theaters, festivals, comedy clubs, and performing arts centers. These are small businesses and non-profits, not billion-dollar leagues, and they absorb the blame when a fan gets burned by a scalper and speculative seller. Fans turn on the venue. Artists lose goodwill. Local revenue for communities walks out the door.
Parker and Cohen note that the TICKET Act currently before Congress would still permit the very ghost ticketing victimizing fans right now. They point to states like Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont, and Nevada, which have already banned speculative sales outright and closed the loopholes that let resellers relabel the same scam as a "concierge" or "ticket procurement" service.
On behalf of the independent stages and fans they serve, NIVA, Fan Alliance, and the live entertainment sector are asking Congress to:
Ban speculative, or ghost ticketing, without exception, with the following language: "A reseller shall not sell or offer to sell speculative tickets, tickets not in the possession of the reseller."
Place universal price gouging limitations on ticket resale to remove the financial incentive for deceptive ticketing practices like ghost ticketing.
Ensure stringent fines of not less than $10,000 per ticket, per day, and empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to set up a violation reporting mechanism and meaningfully enforce these provisions.
Require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment, replacement requests, refunds, consumer complaints, and professional reseller activity—information they have repeatedly declined to publicly disclose.
FANS INVITED TO SHARE THEIR STORIES: Fans defrauded by predatory scalpers and billion dollar resale platforms during the World Cup are encouraged to go to the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center, launched last week, to share their story with their Senator, U.S. Representative, Governor, state legislators, and local elected officials. Sharing what happened to them will take less than 2 minutes and will help drive change across the country in the coming weeks and months.
ABOUT NIVA
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) is the national trade association representing thousands of independent live entertainment venues, festivals, promoters, and more. NIVA works to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of live entertainment. NIVA empowers members and their teams with member benefits, advocacy on the state, local, and federal levels, an annual industry-leading conference, and more.
NIVA led the Save Our Stages campaign, culminating in landmark legislation in 2020 that established the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, the largest arts investment in U.S. history.
NIVA is committed to equity in its support of independent stages. It seeks to create and encourage opportunities for venues, promoters, and festivals owned, operated, and staffed by people of color, women, non-binary, LGBTQ+, veterans, and people with disabilities.
CONTACT
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Kris Ferraro, Kris@luckybreakpr.com
Mike Stommel, Mike@luckybreakpr.com
