Nashville DA To Examine Ticket Exchange

The Nashville District Attorney’s office has been asked to examine an alleged incident between an opponent of Tennessee’s Fairness In Ticketing Act and Fielding Logan, who oversees touring operations for Q Prime South.

The request follows a letter from local nonprofit chair John Ray Clemmons detailing his exchange with Logan, who supports the bill, before Clemmons testified in opposition of the measure at the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee hearing March 5.

Logan “sat next to me after his testimony and began arguing that I was on the wrong side of the issue, that I did not understand it, and that I shouldn’t testify,” Clemmons wrote in the letter, obtained by the Tennessean.

“He then twice offered me what he described as really good tickets to the upcoming Black Keys concert at Bridgestone Arena as a donation to my nonprofit, first orally and again in writing on his mobile device,” the letter continues. “It was clear that he offered me these tickets just before my testimony to keep me from opposing the bill.”

Q Prime South counts The Black Keys and Eric Church among its clients.

Clemmons proceeded to testify and later voiced his concerns to the head of the Commerce and Labor Committee in the letter.

Logan had a different spin on the exchange, noting in a letter of his own that Clemmons “mischaracterizes our conversation. I never asked – not verbally and not in writing – that Mr. Clemmons refrain from giving testimony in front of the Senate Commerce Committee that day. In fact, I only said that I believed the premise of his testimony to be incorrect.”

And though Logan admits he did offer Clemmons tickets for his organization, he explained that the offer was made “to demonstrate that paperless tickets can be transferred for the purpose of helping charities. There is nothing in the Fairness In Ticketing Act that limits what a nonprofit can do with tickets they have purchased or received as a gift.”

Support for paperless ticketing was one of two original sections of the act that were removed prior to votes by the Commerce and Labor Committee and the House Business and Utilities Subcommittee. Another portion of the bill that defined a ticket as a revocable license was also taken out.

Both letters were apparently forwarded to the office of District Attorney General TorryJohnson III for review, although a spokeswoman said the documents hadn’t yet been received, the Tennessean reported.