A BILL FOR AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning trade regulation.
HB1140 would create a new chapter in Indiana law regulating the sale and resale of event tickets and would also add ticket-related violations to the state’s deceptive acts statute. The bill applies to tickets advertised, offered, sold, or resold after June 30, 2026, and defines key terms such as ticket issuer, ticket reseller, venue, speculative ticket, bot, mandatory fee, and total price. It requires ticket sellers and resellers to clearly disclose the full ticket price, including mandatory fees, to itemize those fees, and to disclose seat and section information at the time of purchase.
The bill also prohibits several practices in the ticket market, including misrepresenting fees, hiding mandatory charges, selling duplicate or speculative tickets, using deceptive website addresses or unauthorized venue/artist branding, and circumventing purchase limits with bots. It requires refunds in certain cases when an event is canceled or when a venue rejects a ticket because it is counterfeit, invalid, untimely delivered, canceled, or materially misrepresented. If a venue determines a ticket is counterfeit, duplicate, or otherwise invalid, it must provide the consumer with the attorney general’s contact information.
HB1140 would amend Indiana’s deceptive acts law to expressly cover violations of the new ticket-sale chapter, making those violations actionable by the attorney general or consumers under existing consumer protection remedies and penalties. It would also expand the list of deceptive acts in IC 24-5-0.5 to include ticket resale-related misconduct, thereby giving state enforcement authorities a clearer basis to pursue ticketing fraud, hidden-fee practices, bot-driven sales circumvention, and related consumer harms. The bill would affect ticket issuers, resellers, venues, and consumers in the entertainment ticket market.
Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears strongly consumer-protection oriented, with a clear focus on transparency, anti-fraud enforcement, and refund rights. There is no recorded committee testimony or vote history in the provided materials, so no direct evidence of support or opposition from legislators or stakeholders is available. The structure and findings of the bill suggest an intent to address common complaints about ticket pricing and resale practices, especially hidden fees and invalid or speculative tickets.
The most likely points of contention are the bill’s restrictions on ticket resellers and the compliance burdens placed on issuers and venues. Resellers may object to limits on speculative tickets, bot use, duplicate listings, and mandatory refund obligations, while venues and primary sellers may be concerned about operational costs associated with price disclosure, seat disclosure, and enforcement. Another possible issue is the bill’s treatment of fees and pricing display requirements, which could be debated by industry participants who prefer more flexibility in how tickets are marketed and sold.