Ohio House Technology and Innovation Committee - 3-24-2026

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Representative Cockley?

Representative Hall?

Representative Holmes?

Representative Ty Matthews?

Representative McClain?

Representative Miller?

Is this another pop quiz?

Tomorrow, this is all funny.

Thank you, Chair. Just an update. When we introduced this, we were waiting for essentially what the feds were going to move on this, And since then, we've seen a couple court cases upholding bans of foreign adversarial-made drones. Specifically, I believe back in January, the FCC and Department of Commerce has been on regulation prohibiting the purchasing of new foreign-made drones for governmental entities within the United States. With that decision being made, there is another court case. but knowing the direction or at least foreseeing the direction the feds are moving, bringing this bill back up for consideration, potential amendment coming to work with local law enforcement is how do we create an off-ramp knowing that the market demand and the current market is just dominated by foreign-made drones. It's not that you have to throw those drones away because of this decision, but you can maintain those drones until the end of their life and making that clear in this legislation that there is an off-ramp.

Thank you, sir. Just that was exactly what I wanted to hear. I recognize from a lot of law enforcement just a request for a sunset plan.

They're in a concurrence for sure. They just needed some time.

Through the chair, just comment on the testimony. I want to give a shout out to Candace Sabres, who is in the audience here today. that submitted written testimony. Just to summarize it, it basically echoes the Suicide Prevention Foundation's testimony we heard a couple, I believe a month ago, focusing on protecting all Ohioans, but specifically their most vulnerable are children here. Representative Cochley, do you have anything I'd add? I think the only addition I might have is we've collected quite a bit of feedback. A lot of it is ultimately bottom line, supportive of the bill. It's just, it doesn't go far enough. And so what are the opportunities to potentially add on to it later, and how do we hash out what those potential additional bills might look like to protect children online.

It's more so a bill that would, like a full standing bill that would support the work of this bill as well.

Thank you, Chair. I move to amend House Bill 426 with substitute Bill L136.

I move to amend House Bill 563 with substitute Bill L1361207-1.

Yes, in response to extensive discussions with industry stakeholders, the substitute bill aligns its language with the Federal Trade Commission's updated 2025 ticketing rules, removes provisions that would be too difficult to enforce, and clarifies key terms to avoid unintended impacts on responsible participants in the resale market.

Please proceed. Chairman Cleggett and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today in support of House Bill 563. My name is Chelsea Thompson. I serve as President and CEO of the Renaissance Performing Arts Association in Mansfield, Ohio. We are a multidisciplinary arts presenter and producer. We're housed in a historic theater. We have served our community for nearly a century, welcoming tens of thousands of patrons each year for live performances, concerts, educational programming, and community events. But beyond the stage, our work is deeply rooted in community impact. We serve as an active player in the revitalization of our downtown, and we are proud to be both a cultural anchor and an economic driver in north-central Ohio. I'm here today because a growing issue is undermining trust for consumers and putting our patrons at real risk. Ticket scams and deceptive resale practices have become a significant and rapidly escalating problem. Prior to 2023, this was minimal. Today, it is a near-daily occurrence. Deceptive third-party sellers create websites that closely mimic ours, using our name, our address, and our branding to appear as legitimate outlets. A simple search for Renaissance Theater Mansfield can return a reseller as the top result, appearing in a more prominent position than our official site. When the most visible option looks legitimate, it's no surprise that many buyers are being misled. But what follows is deeply harmful to our consumers. Patrons are frequently charged three to four times the price of our ticket. We have not authorized any seller to issue tickets on our behalf, and yet these consumers believe that they are purchasing directly from us or from an authorized partner. Unfortunately, what the buyers receive in return for their money is often incomplete or worse, completely invalid. We see Pratins arrive without scannable tickets, without seat assignments, and without any way for us to locate their purchase in our ticketing system. In some cases, the same seat has been sold multiple times. In others, accessible seating is sold incorrectly, creating barriers for those who need it. In one instance, five individuals using wheelchairs arrived, expecting accessible seating, only to find they had been assigned standard seats. The performance was sold out. The show was delayed to shuffle patrons who were willing to help us meet the needs of these individuals. In another case, a patron never received notice of a canceled performance because their ticket had been issued under a false name. They were never able to obtain a refund, despite countless attempts to reach the reseller. This is typical. We have seen patrons pay $70 for seats priced at $18, others defrauded by mailers using our name and directing them to fraudulent phone numbers. And there they are charged hundreds of dollars for tickets that should cost a fraction of that. In addition to the issue of consumer fraud, these situations put our organization in an impossible position. When these patrons arrive, they are frustrated, they are confused, they are often embarrassed. They believe that they've done everything right, and in many cases they've spent far more than they can afford for what was meant to be a very special experience. At that moment, we have three options. Deny entry, ask them to purchase new tickets, or absorb the cost ourselves. We almost always choose to make it right, issuing complimentary tickets or credits on their accounts, because preserving that experience for them really matters. As a nonprofit, those decisions do create a real and growing financial strain on our organization. We are actively working to combat the issue. We conduct daily web searches to report fraudulent listings. We flag and block down known sellers. We spend significant time educating our patrons. However, we cannot solve this alone. House Bill 563 provides the tools needed to address the issue at the source. By requiring transparent all-in pricing disclosures, prohibiting the sale of tickets without actual possession, restricting the deceptive use of venue names and branding, and establishing enforceable consumer protections, this legislation creates accountability where currently there is none. It gives consumers the information they need to make informed decisions, and it helps organizations like ours protect both the patrons and our reputation, because at its core, the issue is about marketplace integrity. When someone purchases a ticket, they are not just buying a seat. They are buying an experience. It is a night out with their family. It's a first date. It is a memory. When that experience is compromised by deception, it's not the transaction that's broken. What's broken is the trust. We work every day to create spaces where people feel connected and inspired. House Bill 563 helps ensure that the path to those experiences is honest, transparent, and fair. We would be grateful for your support. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

Representative Cochley. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning. Thank you for being here today. I am actually from Mansfield, Ohio and have a lot of fond memories from the Renaissance. So thank you for your testimony. I've been there for school field trips, shows, Miss Ohio. It's really a charm to have that in Mansfield, Ohio. So thank you. My question for you, are there any gaps in the current language of the bill specifically along the lines of seating arrangements and seats?

Sure. Thank you, Chair.

Yes. So what these scalpers are doing is they are purchasing the tickets. through our website. They're selling it in advance. We're not sure exactly where that happens. If it is a hacking situation, they seem to have an awful lot of information on our ticket system, and there's questions about the loopholes if there's something there. But what happens is a ticket purchaser gets, say, a fraudulent mailer. They call the number. The scalper then sells the ticket to them, then goes to our website, purchases the ticket under a different name, sends them what they supposedly need. Sometimes it gives them what they need, sometimes it doesn't. Our estimate at this point is that in the past three years, we have probably had around an impact of about $90,000. Two-thirds of that has occurred in the last year alone because it is a prolific problem that's growing. But it seems part of the issue is the increase in resellers. We can't keep up. As I said, we're doing daily searches. We can't keep up with being able to flag all of them. And the other issue is that $90,000 is probably underestimated because those are the ones that we've been able to pinpoint. Sometimes they are able to get enough information to the ticket buyer that they have the code they need, they can scan in. We wouldn't necessarily know that there was an issue.

Brett Mohamed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony as well. One of the most interesting things that I've heard in your testimony was when you mentioned that some of these deceptive third-party sellers are actually, their websites are showing up at a more prominent level. So I just do wonder, this is maybe outside of your expertise, but how does that work? Is that based on Google list rating, or how is it possible for them to, I guess, be showing up at a more prominent pace than the actual organization?

Thank you Chair.

In general they buying our tickets but they buying them at the price and selling them for I a little confused over why they would bother to buy the ticket I think because in order for it to align with our system, they would have to be able to have access to a ticket so that the people who are coming here are not just getting... I think it would have become a bigger issue if that's what they were doing. I think this would have been a more fraudulent, quicker-to-the-surface issue. I think what they've done is kind of skate by because our patrons are getting a ticket. They are getting a ticket. They just think that somehow they've been grossly overcharged by us.

Yeah, like I said, there's probably many that we have not caught. Typically, they're easily flagged in our system because we can see that it's an Outlook address with a random name that is not attached to the ticket buyer, if they are able to input that to the ticket buyer. We do daily Google searches, too, just to see who's selling. We report those to Google. Okay.

Please proceed. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair Claggett, Vice Chair Workman, Ranking Member Mohammed, and members of the committee. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you today about ticketing issues that impact so many across our state. My name is Sue Porter, and I'm the Executive Director of Ballot Met. I also serve as the president of the Creative Ohio Foundation Board, which helps arts advocacy across the state. Valley Met is in its 48th season and typically performs for about 60,000 audience members a year in theaters like the Ohio Theater and the Joanne Davidson Theater, both right across from the statehouse. Last year, our audiences came from 82 Ohio counties, 44 other states, and four other countries. Our most popular show is The Nutcracker. It has 25 shows each December right at the Ohio Theater. Last December, 35,000 audience members came to see our Nutcracker. As executive director of BalletMed, I greet the audience members as they enter the theater. and spend much of my time trying to help with ticketing questions and issues. One of the hardest issues I deal with are fraudulent tickets. The concern often starts when there is someone sitting in the seats the person thinks they have a ticket for. I look at the tickets and realize that sometimes it does not say it's for the nutcracker at the Ohio Theater. The ticket often looks like what we have at Ballet Met, but it has minor changes. It might not have a row that exists in the theater. It might not have a seat. And I've heard countless stories about people paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket in a seat that does not exist. Again, our tickets range from about $35 to just over $100. Last December, I asked our box office to keep track of how many fraudulent ticket situations we had just at the Nutcracker. It turns out that there were 110 situations involving 233 tickets. That was in two and a half weeks and does not include any of the fraud we caught before we got to the theater. The chargebacks of someone who had fraudulently used a credit card to purchase tickets was over $100,000. Again, that's just for the Nutcracker and just in one season. Hundreds of citizens were impacted, and that was only for one set of performances in one of a thousand venues in the state. Many of these people saved to buy tickets so their families could see the live performing arts and be part of a holiday tradition. There are often children involved who are so excited. It's their first experience going to the theater. And I have to tell you, there can be a lot of tears when something isn't working out. We do our best to make sure that they get to see our shows, often giving complimentary tickets when they know they can't afford to buy another one. These are not situations where a legitimate company has engaged in reselling an actual ticket. They are situations where someone has decided to take advantage of a ticket buyer by selling something that does not exist. One thing I know is that the people selling these fraudulent tickets seem to change their tactics faster than we can catch them. And right now we feel that we are fighting this battle alone. We have box office personnel working every day to try and determine if a ticket is legitimate or fraudulent. We also have extra box office people now working in the theater when we have a show and trying to help those who may have been taken advantage of. I wish they could spend their time actually selling legitimate tickets. That would be beneficial, I think, to all of us. House Bill 563 would help with this statewide problem. It prohibits trying to fool customers by having fraudulent tickets and make them seem like they're issued by someone like Ballet Met. It prohibits selling multiple tickets for the same seats and selling tickets for non-existent seats. It requires actual or constructive possession of a ticket offered for sale. It provides for enforcement by the Attorney General. These actions will help restore public trust. They will help organizations such as BallyMet have a way to fight back and to help those who have been taken advantage of. I hope this means we, again, can spend more time focusing on the performing arts and selling legitimate tickets. The bill creates transparency and ultimately protects all of us. I and our entire BallyMet family hope you will support this bill, and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today, and I'm happy to answer any additional questions.

Well, through the chair. We do not get help from the Attorney General at this point. I don't think that, I mean, there's so many of these situations. They are often for what I think in the statewide basis are small amounts. And what we do is try and make that person have the experience they thought they were going to have. We give them complimentary tickets. This year we took names and addresses and said, because we knew that this was a bill that was going through, and I have 110 of those, should anyone like any of those people to come forward, because they were so, they are so upset. But there's not much we can do at that point. And in fact, these chargebacks from using the fraudulently buying the tickets are still happening today for shows that happened in December. Every day I get thousands of dollars that we thought we had sold in a ticket and base our budgets on, and now we have to – the credit cards assume the consumer is right, and they are. So that money is then refunded to the consumer, and then it's the arts organization that has taken that loss.

Just curious, do you see more of the deceptive practice being a mimic or disguised website where people are purchasing from, or more so the purchasing from you and then the scalping that's increasing the price 50%, 60%? What do you see more of?

Let's take a moment and let's get on the record why your organization would not prohibit other people from selling your tickets and simply handle all the sales through your office. Well,

I'm aware of that, but you also have other people selling, so.

Okay. Okay, so from that perspective, because some groups go much farther to the larger ticket vendors. So from your perspective, and they're just hacking into your system, so to speak.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair.

We started seeing it a number of years ago, but we caught some of them. It wasn't so much in the theater. The last few years, it's risen exponentially, to the point where I finally said, we have to keep track of this, and I was amazed. 110 in two weeks, that's a lot of situations. And those are families that have just come to try and be part, and that's just the nutcracker. So it is accelerated at pace that we need help. We need legislation. We need to have a direct route to the Attorney General. So at least we can try and fight back, because they are much faster and smarter about it than I think we can ever be.

Thank you, Chair Colleggett and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to share our support of House Bill 563. My name is Wilma Mullett and I am the Executive Director of Tuscarora Arts Partnership, a nonprofit arts council serving Tuscarora County. Our mission is to advocate for and support a thriving arts and culture landscape across our region. That landscape features a wide variety of performing arts organizations, including community theaters like the Little Theater of Tuscarawas County, professional venues like Ohio Star Theater, and university-affiliated spaces like the Performing Arts Center at Kent State Tuscarawas. These organizations are essential to our local economy and our local tourism and the quality of life in our rural and Appalachian communities. I am here today to share that fraudulent, third-party ticketing is not just a problem in large cities or major venues. It is actively impacting small town Ohio, our arts organizations, and the audiences we serve. Last December, the Little Theater of Test Cross County produced its holiday musical, Annie, which is a family-friendly production designed to be accessible and affordable. Tickets for adults were only $20, and for students it was $15. However, when the show was promoted through local media, third-party ticketing sites such as StubHub appeared in search results, and advertising tickets for as much as $400. Patrons called the theater confused and alarmed by these prices, and some chose not to attend at all because they believed the production was unaffordable. To this day, the theater does not know how many ticket sales were lost because patrons were misdirected to fraudulent and misleading ticketing sites. It also raises a critical concern of how often are these third-party platforms appearing ahead of official sources when someone searches for a local production. We continue to see similar patterns across our region. At Ohio Star Theater, a visitor to Amish country purchased four tickets through a third-party site at $119 per ticket, plus taxes, plus a $40 handling fee. Had those tickets been purchased directly to Ohio Star Theater, they would have cost $39 each, and totaling $156, with no additional fees. Not only was the patron overcharged, but the tickets were issued without the correct contact information, or a valid order number, creating confusion and additional work for the theater staff. In another instance, a patron believed she was calling the theater directly, but instead reached a third-party seller. She was charged $90 for a $29 ticket and described the interaction as high-pressured and misleading. As a result, she stated she would not return to the theater, placing blame on the venue for an experience they did not control. Organizations like the Performing Arts Center at Kent State Tescaroas had actively warned patrons on their social media to purchase tickets only through their official channels. Despite this, third-party sites have listed tickets for as high as $400 for events where the standard price at that theater was $70. Some of these sites go as far as copying the venue logos, mimicking website layouts, and using urgency tactics like tickets selling fast or trusted site for messaging to create false credibility. This fraudulent activity is harming both patrons and performing arts organizations in our region. For our communities, especially in our rural and Appalachian communities, this means families are discouraged from attending local performances because they believe ticket prices are far higher than they actually are. Arts organizations lose revenue that directly supports programming, staffing, and operations, while venues are forced to divert limited resources toward search engine optimization just to compete with misleading platforms. Perhaps most damaging, patrons associate these negative experiences with the venues themselves, eroding trust and long-term audience engagement. In rural and Appalachian communities like ours, where arts organizations operate on tight margins already and rely heavily on community support, these impacts are significant. House Bill 563 offers a meaningful step toward addressing this issue. By increasing transparency, limiting deceptive practices, and holding third-party ticket sellers accountable, this legislation helps ensure that consumers know exactly what they are purchasing and who they are purchasing from. It protects Ohioans from misleading prices and high-pressure sales tactics, and it restores trust between audiences and the venues themselves. For organizations like ours, it means a fairer digital landscape, one where official ticket sources are not overshadowed by deceptive or fraudulent platforms. Ultimately, this bill supports not only consumer protection, but also the sustainability of local arts and culture across Ohio. On behalf of Tuscaraw's arts partnership and our performing arts partners, I urgently urge your support for House Bill 563, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Appreciate that very much.

and arts organizations? Sure. Thank you for your question and to the representative here. So with our smaller performing arts venues, they have their own ticketing sites that they use. So So they have their own platforms that they operate off of and have always used for years. It wasn't until recent years that there have been catches of additional sites that have been selling, whether it is one that we know or a fraudulent one that has a different URL than what is recognized. For those, again, whenever we say small nonprofits, and so in our demographic, we have like the little theater just hired their first executive director that is part-time in the last six months and they've been an operating theater for over 80 years working on as volunteers so a lot of it has been volunteer driven and also I'm part-time too I'm 20 hours a week so I'm glad to be here but what is important to think about is that there's already systems in place for a lot of these local theaters if they choose to use these things but what's what is hindering is the unauthorized use. So these are tickets that are being sold in unauthorized sites that they did not okay. And I think that's the thing to keep in mind is that they set up their permissions for where tickets are sold. They have their own systems, but what is harming local performing arts venues is the additional sites that are trying to sell them to, and it ends up being fraudulent or misleading.

All right, if there are further questions on this issue, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Please stay with us as we work through the process here.

Committee, Thomas just walked in. He has a sheet for each of you. Go ahead and pass those out if you would. We have taken the summary, we have summarized the three witnesses today plus the other, what, three or four? Four. Four, four, four written. and so he has given you a one pager on the significant issues that are enumerated in all those testimonies. I thought that might help you get your head around the issue even more easily. All right this concludes then the third hearing for House Bill 563. Seeing no other business this concludes the House Technology Innovation Committee, we are adjourned.