NIVA Urges California Governor to Veto AB 1349 Days After Website Called for Continued Support

California’s newly passed ticketing reform bill is facing a veto campaign from one of the organizations that helped develop it — despite evidence that the group’s state chapter was still publicly encouraging support for the legislation almost up to the moment it changed sides.

AB 1349 cleared the California Legislature in the final minutes of its 2026 session Sunday night and is now headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom. The legislation prohibits speculative ticket sales, expands restrictions targeting ticket-buying bots and deceptive resale websites, and imposes obligations on resale marketplaces to take reasonable measures against speculative listings. It also contains late-added protections for specified inventory withheld by event rights holders and a broader inventory-management safe harbor for professional sports organizations.

The bill passed the Senate 29-5 on August 31 before returning to the Assembly, which concurred in the Senate amendments before the Legislature’s midnight deadline.

Now the National Independent Venue Association, which said earlier this year that it was “proud to help architect” AB 1349, is formally calling on Newsom to veto it. NIVA argues that changes made during the Senate process shifted legal exposure toward independent venues and promoters while giving insufficient accountability to large resale marketplaces. Its September 1 campaign also asks fans, artists and independent stages to contact Newsom in support of a veto.

But newly surfaced evidence makes the timing of NIVA’s reversal increasingly difficult to pin down.

A screenshot provided to TicketNews shows that a NIVA California ticketing-advocacy page was marked “Updated August 29, 2026” and continued to identify AB 1349 as a “current priority.”

Under “What we’re asking for,” the page called for “Continued support for AB 1349.” It also instructed members to submit stories about harmful resale practices and join advocacy alerts as NIVA California prepared for another resale bill expected when lawmakers reconvene.

A source who reviewed the NIVA California website told TicketNews that the message remained online as of Monday evening, September 1 — after NIVA’s opposition to AB 1349 had already become public and after lawmakers had passed the bill.

The website was therefore still instructing members to support AB 1349 well after the organization had publicly moved in the opposite direction. This further underscores how abruptly the organization’s public position changed and raises questions about what ultimately caused it to conclude that a bill it had spent much of the session championing should instead be stopped.

TicketNews has asked the public relations firm handling NIVA’s communications to clarify when the organization decided to move from support to opposition and why many of the provisions it now identifies as reasons for a veto did not cause it to withdraw support earlier. No response had been received as of publication.

Most Current Objections Were Already in the Bill

NIVA’s September 1 veto campaign points to several specific objections.

The organization says the final bill creates a private right of action that could expose independent venues and promoters to litigation while excluding resale marketplaces from the same seller-level liability; defines some primary-ticket activity in ways that could encompass presales, waitlists and VIP packages; excludes marketplaces from the definition of the individual speculative-ticket seller; and eliminates an earlier affirmative requirement that resale listings display seat and row information.

But those concerns do not stem from the final hours of the legislative session.

The statutory language underlying those four complaints was already in AB 1349 following its earlier Senate policy-committee rewrites. NIVA California nonetheless remained listed as a co-source and supporter of the legislation in an official Senate analysis with positions current through August 14.

The newly surfaced website evidence pushes that timeline substantially later: NIVA California’s own advocacy material was updated August 29 while continuing to call for support.

That was also more than two weeks after Senate Appropriations effectively killed AB 1720, a companion proposal to AB 1349 backed by NIVA, Live Nation, and other “Fix The Tix” allies that would have capped covered ticket resales at 10% above the original price.

The final August 28 amendment did add one provision NIVA is now expressly criticizing.

Lawmakers created a broad safe harbor protecting California professional sports teams, sports venue operators and qualifying league-owned entities from liability under the ticketing chapter for withholding, reserving, managing, transferring or allocating inventory for operational or business purposes.

NIVA’s veto statement argues that the change protected billion-dollar sports organizations while leaving independent entertainment businesses exposed.

The same August 28 amendment also expressly protected certain season-ticket, multigame and playoff packages and inventory withheld at the discretion of a rights holder or venue operator when marketed by that rights holder or an authorized ticketing agent.

Those late changes provide a clear new point of disagreement. They do not, however, explain why NIVA remained publicly supportive after the earlier amendments containing most of the defects it now cites as justification for killing the bill.

NIVA’s public opposition appears to have surfaced over the final weekend. Reporting published August 30 described NIVA and multiple allied organizations urging lawmakers to reject AB 1349 before its final vote.

That leaves an unusually compressed sequence: a NIVA California page updated August 29 asked for continued support; by August 30 the organization was pressing lawmakers to vote no; and on September 1 it began asking Newsom for a veto.

Former Opponents Ended Up Supporting AB 1349

The reversal is more notable because several organizations traveled in the opposite direction during AB 1349’s Senate rewrite.

The Coalition for Ticket Fairness initially opposed AB 1349 but ultimately supported the amended legislation.

“AB 1349 is a win for California ticket buyers,” CTF spokesperson Geoff Vetter told TicketNews following passage.

Vetter said CTF was particularly pleased that the legislation makes clear that marketplaces have a responsibility to prevent bad actors from using their platforms.

That is an important counterpoint to NIVA’s claim that marketplaces escaped meaningful responsibility. While AB 1349 excludes a resale marketplace from the definition of the individual person making a speculative ticket sale, it separately prohibits marketplaces from knowingly or recklessly facilitating those sales and requires reasonable measures designed to prevent them.

Other consumer, civil-rights and business organizations also shifted toward support following the Senate changes.

A July 28 letter from 12 organizations said earlier versions of AB 1349 could have restricted consumer choice and reinforced anticompetitive ticketing practices, but amendments made during the Senate process addressed those concerns and produced what the organizations described as a better balance among consumer protection, competition and transparency.

Those supporters included National Action Network Sacramento, the California League of United Latin American Citizens, California Black Chamber of Commerce, California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, California African American Chamber of Commerce and several other statewide and regional groups.

One of those organizations is now directly criticizing NIVA’s reversal.

“After important amendments to AB1349 in the Senate policy committee process, we were happy to support this bill — but NIVA’s last ditch effort to kill the bill to protect Ticketmaster cannot go unnoticed,” Pastor Tecoy Porter Sr., president of National Action Network Sacramento, said in a statement provided to TicketNews through the Empower Fans, Not Monopolies coalition. “We will continue to work to make ticketing fair for consumers across California.”

Porter’s characterization of NIVA’s motives is his own. NIVA maintains that its opposition is intended to protect fans and independent venues from a bill it believes gives resale marketplaces inadequate accountability. Its veto announcement says the organization wants lawmakers to return next year with new legislation targeting speculative ticketing.

But the competing coalitions illustrate how thoroughly the politics surrounding AB 1349 changed during the Senate process.

Groups representing resale-market competition and consumer choice that initially opposed the legislation ultimately supported it after amendments. NIVA, which helped develop the legislation and championed it for most of the session, moved the other way — apparently within the final days.

Newsom Now Gets the Decision

The change also echoes an earlier federal ticketing fight involving NIVA.

TicketNews reported in 2024 that NIVA affiliates moved against the bipartisan TICKET Act late in the congressional process after previously backing the measure, amid an effort to pursue more expansive restrictions on ticket resale.

In California, NIVA was not merely an early supporter whose position became obsolete after months of amendments. Its local chapter was still publishing a call for “continued support for AB 1349” on the final weekend of the legislative session, and that message remained visible even after its opposition became public.

Days later, NIVA is asking California’s governor to prevent the same legislation from becoming law.

Newsom now has until the end of September to decide whether to sign or veto AB 1349.