Irving Azoff-Aligned Music Artists Coalition Pushes Survey Backing Resale Caps at Core of Industry Lobbying Efforts

MAC says voters support resale restrictions and speculative-ticket bans, but the group’s ties to Irving Azoff, Fix the Tix, and incumbent live-entertainment interests complicate its consumer-advocacy pitch.

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The Music Artists Coalition is promoting a new national survey showing broad voter support for ticket resale restrictions, marking the latest push by an Azoff-aligned advocacy group that has emerged as a prominent voice in the live-entertainment industry’s campaign to regulate secondary ticket marketplaces while leaving much of the primary-ticketing ecosystem untouched.

In a Friday release, MAC said a national poll of 800 registered voters found strong bipartisan support for several ticketing reforms under debate in Congress and state legislatures. The survey found some 71% of New York respondents said ticket resale provides a valuable service for fans who miss out on original sales or need to sell tickets they can no longer use, while 91% say reforms to the ticketing industry should focus on eliminating fraud while preserving choices for fans.

However, according to the group, 78% of respondents support a resale price cap, 85% support face-value disclosure requirements, 83% support banning the sale of tickets the seller does not possess, and 88% support requiring resale platforms to verify that listed tickets are in the seller’s possession.

MAC also argued the issue carries electoral weight, saying 68% of voters would be more likely to support an elected official who backs a speculative-ticket ban, while 60% would be more likely to support one who backs a resale price cap.

“Artists want their fans in the room at fair prices they set, but the resale system is diverting money away from consumers, venues, and artists as resellers treat tickets like unregulated stocks,” MAC executive director Ron Gubitz said. “Voters nationwide are sending a clear message that the status quo isn’t working.”

The survey was conducted by Breakwater Strategy on behalf of MAC from February 9–19, 2026, according to the release.

But MAC’s latest push is not landing in a neutral policy environment. The organization has been one of the most visible members of the Fix the Tix coalition, which has backed legislative priorities championed by Live Nation itself, exclusively aimed at restricting resale, limiting speculative listings, and increasing control by artists, promoters, venues, and ticketing rights-holders over how tickets can be transferred after purchase.

Those goals are typically framed as consumer-protection measures. But critics of the industry-backed reform effort argue that price caps and transfer restrictions can also function as competition policy by another name—weakening independent resale marketplaces while doing little to address conduct in the primary market, including dynamic pricing, opaque ticket availability, platinum-style pricing, holdbacks, and the use of scarcity to drive consumer urgency.

That tension has become more pronounced as Live Nation Entertainment and aligned groups have backed legislation in multiple states focused heavily on resale-market restrictions while avoiding comparable limits on initial ticket sellers. In California, for example, Live Nation and MAC both supported AB 1720, a proposed resale price-cap bill marketed as a “Fans First” measure, even before the bill’s substantive language had been finalized.

RELATED: Live Nation, Azoff-Aligned Lobby Throws Weight Behind Unfinished California Price Cap Legislation

TicketNews has previously reported that the California proposal would cap ticket resale for covered events while leaving primary-market pricing practices largely untouched. The bill’s rollout also came amid broader industry lobbying for resale caps and transfer restrictions that critics say would steer consumers back toward dominant primary-ticketing channels, including Ticketmaster.

On Thursday afternoon, California’s Assembly Appropriations Committee passed AB1720 out of committee, but amended its price cap language to limit the impact to “independent” venues, which is expected to significantly lessen the industry lobby’s interest in continuing to push for its passage.

RELATED: Live Nation’s Two-Front Strategy: Fight Breakup Pressure in D.C. – Rewrite the Rules in the States

MAC’s positioning is further complicated by its origins and leadership network. The group was formed in 2019 by a slate of major artist managers and representatives led by Irving Azoff, Coran Capshaw and John Silva. Its initial board included artists and industry figures such as Don Henley, Dave Matthews, Shane McAnally, Maren Morris, Anderson .Paak, Meghan Trainor, Verdine White, Jordan Bromley, Jim Cicconi, Kristen Foster, Susan Genco, Elliott Groffman and Ali Harnell.

Azoff’s role is especially relevant in ticketing debates. He is a former Ticketmaster CEO and former Live Nation chairman, having joined Ticketmaster after it acquired his Front Line Management business and later serving in Live Nation leadership following the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger. He remains one of the most influential figures in live entertainment through his work with Oak View Group, artist management, and industry advocacy.

Oak View Group, which Azoff co-founded, was prominently cited in the Department of Justice’s 2024 antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The DOJ alleged that OVG and Live Nation “colluded and established a partnership to allocate business lines, avoid competing with each other, and chart a mutually beneficial plan to cement Live Nation’s dominance.” The complaint also cited internal communications describing OVG as a “hammer” for Live Nation—context that has heightened scrutiny of Azoff-linked advocacy as lawmakers consider new rules for the industry.

MAC does not include Live Nation or Ticketmaster in its branding, and its public messaging emphasizes artists and fans. But reporting the group’s 2024 lobbying in California detailed the extensive connective tissue, with nearly half of the organization’s board having either direct connection to or an important business relationship with the entertainment giant.

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Its advocacy also overlaps substantially with the legislative agenda promoted by Fix the Tix, Live Nation’s FAIR Ticketing proposals, and other industry-aligned campaigns seeking to give artists and event operators more control over resale and transfer. Such overlap matters because the policy question is not simply whether consumers oppose fraud, fake tickets, or excessive resale prices. The more consequential question is who gains new authority under the proposed reforms—and whether those rules would reduce costs for fans or instead reinforce the position of incumbent primary-market players.

Speculative-ticketing bans and stronger seller-verification requirements have drawn relatively broad support, particularly where they target listings for tickets a seller does not own. But resale price caps remain more controversial. Consumer advocates and economists have warned that caps can push sales into less transparent channels, reduce the number of legitimate resale options, and concentrate more leverage in the hands of primary sellers and event operators.

Those concerns are amplified when caps apply only to resale, not to the initial sale. Under that framework, an artist, promoter, venue, or ticketing platform can still raise original prices through dynamic pricing or premium inventory programs, while resale marketplaces are barred from reflecting demand above a legal ceiling. Critics argue that such a system does not eliminate high prices so much as shift pricing power upstream.

MAC’s survey release leans heavily on voter frustration with the resale market, describing it as “predatory” and calling for greater “price accountability.” But it does not ask whether voters would support restrictions on primary-market pricing, mandatory disclosure of ticket holdbacks, limits on dynamic pricing, or clearer disclosure of how many tickets are actually made available to the general public at on-sale.

That omission sits at the center of the current ticketing fight. Fans frequently encounter high prices and limited availability before tickets reach the secondary market, particularly for major concerts where primary sellers use variable pricing models and premium-ticket programs that bring official prices closer to resale levels. Yet much of the current industry-backed legislative push continues to frame resale as the primary source of consumer harm.

For MAC and its allies, the survey is intended to demonstrate that resale restrictions are politically popular. For critics, it also illustrates how incumbent-aligned groups are attempting to define “ticketing reform” narrowly: crack down on resale, expand control for artists and rights-holders, and avoid structural regulation of the primary market, where Live Nation, Ticketmaster, major promoters, venue operators, and artist-management interests already hold significant power.

The result is a reform debate in which nearly every stakeholder claims to be speaking for fans. The more difficult question is whether the proposed rules would provide fans with more transparency, more choice, and greater protection—or simply give the most powerful players in live entertainment more control over what happens after a ticket is purchased.