February 14, 2012 Secretary of State Elaine F.

Marshall PO Box 29622 Raleigh, NC 27626 Attorney General Roy Cooper Consumer Protection Bureau Mail Service Center 9001 Raleigh, NC 27699 Dear Madam Secretary and Mister Attorney General:
On behalf of the millions of concert fans in North Carolina, including more than 2,000 fans who are members of the Fan Freedom Project, we are writing to bring to your attention a serious violation of consumer rights on the part of Ticketmaster, its reselling subsidiary TicketsNow and the Durham Performing Arts Center.

North Carolina law permits a venue to prohibit the resale of admission tickets for the event at a price greater than the price on the face of the ticket and requires Ticketmaster to post a notice of this prohibition on its website. However, it does not allow a venue to prohibit resale altogether, as Ticketmasters website leads fans to believe. NOTICE OF PROHIBITION OF ONLINE RESALE OF ADMISSION TICKETS Pursuant to 14-344.1(b) of the General Statutes of North Carolina, the Durham Performing Arts Center has filed a notice with the NC Secretary of State prohibiting the Online Resale of Admission Tickets to this event. This notice misleads fans and violates our consumer rights. We believe fans own the tickets they buy and should be free to choose the best method, time and price for transferring tickets to other fans. By indicating that tickets cant be resold on the Internet at all, Ticketmasters prohibition is patently unfair to fans who may purchase a ticket and then be unable to attend the show because their kids get sick or a business trip comes up. In addition, we were surprised to find tickets for an upcoming DPAC show available for well above face value on TicketsNow.com. TicketsNow currently lists tickets to the March 6 Big Time Rush show for $82$186. Face value tickets for the sold-out show cost $30-$55. This is clearly an attempt by Ticketmaster, through DPAC, to eliminate competition in the secondary market for its own benefit. We urge you to investigate this situation and to insist that Ticketmaster comply with the law by clarifying their misleading prohibition notice. We also suggest that the venue work to enforce this prohibition consistently for all resellers, including Ticketmaster and its subsidiaries, in compliance with the law.

Sincerely,

Taylor Floyd Raleigh, NC

Mary Catherine Floyd Raleigh, NC

Jenn Davis Raleigh, NC

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E00476931D2AE03?artistid=1532105&majorcatid=10001&minor catid=1

http://www.ticketsnow.com/InventoryBrowse/Big-Time-Rush-Tickets-at-Durham-Performing-ArtsCenter-in-Durham-3-6-2012?PID=1210104