Diamond-certified rap-rocker/country artist Kid Rock attended the White House today, March 31st, to oversee the signing of a new executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump. That order intends to target ticket scalping and price gouging in regards to the live events industry.
The executive order has been a passion project for Rock in recent months, with Rock having met with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last December to begin hammering out the framework for it. At that time, Rock said his intentions for the legislation were to, “help fix the fiasco of buying concert tickets. Gonna open a can of whoop ass on the bots, scalpers, venues, ticketing companies, managers and artists alike who rip off and deceive the public with the horse shit that has gone on for decades and only gotten worse.”
The executive order aims to stop ‘price-gouging by middlemen’ in regards to concert ticketing and reign in ticketing practices, ensuring ‘price transparency at all stages of the ticket-purchasing process.’
Furthermore, the executive order is intended to, ‘take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market.’ Rock, who is a longtime friend and advocate for Trump, spoke to the media during the signing of the executive order in the Oval Office, at one point stating:
“You can buy a ticket for $100. By the time you check out, it’s $170. You don’t know what you’ve been charged for. But, more importantly, the bots, you know, they come in, they get all the good tickets to your favorite shows you want to go to, and then they’re relisted immediately for sometimes 400-500% markup.”
Further decrying the state of live event ticketing, Rock offered:
“I’ll be the first one to say, and I know the president doesn’t like when I say this, but, I’m a little overpaid right now. It’s kind of ridiculous. I would rather be, you know, a hero to working-class people and have them be able to come attend my shows and give them a fair ticket price. I can’t control that right now so hopefully this is a step to make that happen.”