Councilman Leroy Comrie spoke in City Hall today as a father, describing the “stomach-turning feeling of failing” to procure tickets for his children’s favorite Disney concerts and live shows.

Tomorrow, Comrie said, he will introduce legislation to the City Council that might make the stomach-turning a thing of the past.

The bill, nicknamed the “Hannah Montana Bill” after the Disney television show whose live concert received national attention over the scramble for—and prices of—its tickets, will mandate that 40 percent of tickets for shows in any venue receiving public funding will be set aside for sale to individual customers.

(In December 2007, $26 tickets to the Hannah Montana show were sold for over $250.)

“It is my hope that this bill will operate as ‘market-correction’ legislation,” Comrie (D-Queens) said.

His research found that, for example, tickets for the upcoming Van Halen concert cost between $15 and $154, while the same tickets are being offered on StubHub, just one of many online ticket merchants, for $6,975.

Tickets to sporting events at Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium and Madison Square Garden are subject to markup, as well as The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the live stage production of “Go, Diego, Go,” a children’s television show.

“This bill ensures that the free market principles behind ticket resale will still take place, however, it levels the playing field for working class New Yorkers whose tax subsidize the arenas where these concerts are taking place,” he said.

Research also revealed that internet ticket vendors use technology that enables them to snap up highly anticipated tickets in an instant, leaving very few tickets left for individual purchasers. Technology has also been used to also get around purchase limits already imposed by Ticketmaster.

Comrie hoped that ticket brokers would soon equip themselves with security software that allows a computer to distinguish between human users and automated devices, although this is not outlined in the bill.

The bill also limits individuals to purchasing only four tickets from a particular vender per day. However, it does not mandate which seats would be held. Doing this would encroach on the way that venues do business, he said.

The Hannah Montana Bill is modeled on Missouri legislation, which requires people who purchased tickets over the internet to show identification and a credit card when they retrieved their tickets.

Comrie did not discount the idea of using an online affidavit to ensure that each individual was, in fact, an individual.

“What happens now is that [vendors] have no idea who these tickets are going to,” he said.

In June 2007, Governor Spitzer signed a measure that ended a price cap on resold tickets. The legislation was supposed to protect season tickets holders from being penalized by major sports teams who claimed they had exclusive rights to resell their organization’s tickets.

Comrie said that the high prices seen now are an “unintended negative consequence to that legislation.” What began as a slow rise in ticket costs, he said, has become a crescendo.

Legislation similar to the Hannah Montana Bill in front of the State Assembly would prohibit service charges in sales of tickets and exclusive contracts between ticket agents and publicly owned or supported venues.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) proposed that bill in January 2007, but has yet to find a sponsor in the State Senate. Brodsky opposed the bill Spitzer signed last summer. Staff said that the Hannah Montana Bill, upon first hear, sounded like it would work well for the city, where most of the State’s large venues are located.

“It is imperative for the City Council to address this issue,” Comrie said.