On Friday, Governor Paterson declined to sign legislation that would extend a 2007 law removing regulation of event ticket price markup. The law was one of five laws featured in our recent report, New Yorkers Pay When Big Money Plays: The Case for Public Financing of Elections.

See the Daily News article about it here.

As we mentioned in our report:

Consumer outrage over price gouging by the ticket reselling industry has been fueled by new revelations this year of inflated prices for high-profile events like concerts by Hannah Montana and Bruce Springsteen. In May, a reporter found tickets on sale for an upcoming Springsteen concert in Albany selling for $149 to $849 on a ticket broker website that cost roughly $100 when purchased from the venue. And, due to the complex nature of media and entertainment conglomerates today, which often are engaged in many lines of business and have interlocking relationships with other companies, the beneficiaries of ticket scalping are not just ticket resellers, but other companies that have relationships with them or the venues.

We applaud Governor Paterson for not extending this law that is a perfect example of legislation existing that helps big corporations and gives incentives to continue New York’s “pay-to-play” system.