The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general in a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday accuse Ticketmaster (ticket pictured from 2009) and its owner, Live Nation Entertainment, of knowingly enabling ticket resalers to buy large numbers of live-event tickets to boost profits at consumers’ expense. Photo by Andrew Gombert/EPA
Sept. 18 (UPI) — Ticketing vendor Ticketmaster and owner Live Nation Entertainment illegally deceive consumers on the cost of tickets for live events, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday that accuses the two entities of tacitly working with scalpers, who purchase tickets online and then offer them for resale at a higher price.
Doing so enables Ticketmaster and Live Nation to profit at least twice when a ticket is initially bought and then resold one or more times to others, while Ticketmaster charges a fee on each transaction, according to TicketNews.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the legal filing is intended to protect Americans from “being ripped off” when buying live-event tickets.
“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” Ferguson said Thursday in a news release.
“It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show.”
The FTC says Ticketmaster controls at least 80% of the nation’s ticket market and processed $82.6 billion in ticket purchases from 2019 through 2024.
It also says the ticketing service publicly blamed bots and larger resale sites for forcing consumers to pay more than the original ticket price but privately admitted it profits from such ticket resales.
The FTC also accuses Ticketmaster and Live Nation of bait-and-switch pricing that hid up to 44% in fees that were charged consumers an additional $16.4 billion on top of artist-approved ticket prices.
It says Ticketmaster also enabled resellers to purchase up to thousands of tickets per event instead of enforcing claimed limits on ticket sales and “turning a blind eye” to such resale tactics.
An internal review by Ticketmaster showed five ticket brokers controlled 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts that bought 246,407 tickets to 2,594 events, which is an average of 95 tickets per event.
When the resalers purchase tickets, Ticketmaster charges a fee on the initial sale, another to list each ticket for resale and a final fee when the end-user buys it from the resaler at a significantly higher price.
Seven state attorneys general for Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Nebraska, Utah and Colorado.
The lawsuit accuses Ticketmaster and Live Nation of violating the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
The FTC and state attorneys general seek civil penalties and monetary relief.
The case was filed after the Justice Department in May announced an investigation into anti-competitive practices in the entertainment industry and sought information from consumers.
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