Kid Rock Leverages Relationship With POTUS To Lower Ticked Prices
On March 31, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office aimed at curbing ticket scalping in the live entertainment industry, a move that seeks to address the long-standing frustration of fans facing exorbitant resale prices for concerts and events. Standing beside him was musician Kid Rock, a vocal advocate for the policy, who has been pushing for reforms to tackle the pervasive issue of scalpers using bots to buy up tickets at face value and resell them at massive markups. Kid Rock, dressed in a flamboyant red suit adorned with American flag motifs, called the order a “great first step” toward ensuring fair ticket prices, emphasizing that the current system often leaves fans paying as much as 70 times the original ticket price while artists see no additional profit, a sentiment echoed in a White House fact sheet highlighting the $132.6 billion industry’s struggles with “unscrupulous middlemen.”
The executive order directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce the 2016 Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act more rigorously, a law designed to prevent scalpers from using bots to circumvent ticket purchasing limits, though it has only been enforced once since its passage. It also tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with ensuring scalpers comply with IRS regulations, while the FTC is instructed to promote price transparency and take action against unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive practices in the secondary ticketing market. Kid Rock, who met with Bondi in December 2024 to lay the groundwork for this policy, expressed gratitude to Trump for the “lightning speed” of the action, noting that the order could pave the way for future legislation to cap resale prices, a measure he supports despite identifying as a capitalist.
The policy push has garnered support from industry players like Live Nation, which thanked Trump and Kid Rock for addressing the issue of scalpers and bots that “prevent fans from getting tickets at the prices artists set.” However, the order’s immediate impact remains uncertain, as it largely reinforces existing laws rather than introducing new mechanisms, and some critics question whether enforcement will be prioritized in a government facing broader budgetary constraints. For Kid Rock, the initiative is personal—he lamented being “overpaid” and unable to control ticket prices for his working-class fans, a frustration shared by artists like Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan, whose fans have faced similar ticketing debacles in recent years, such as the 2022 Eras Tour fiasco that prompted a Senate hearing. While the executive order marks a symbolic win for fans, its success will hinge on the FTC’s ability to follow through on enforcement, a challenge that has historically undermined similar efforts.
