FTC Officially Sues Ticketmaster, Live Nation For Deceptive Pricing & Unfair Ticketing Practices

Finally facing the music?

For years, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have made the ticket buying experience one full of dread and an inordinate amount of additional, secretive fees. It’s no secret that the ticket market for live events is all the way corrupt, though I’m hoping we’re slowly but surely on the right track to more straightforward ticket buying.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to buy a $45 ticket and when I go to checkout, it’s $145 after all of the services fees and transaction fees are tacked on. I’m the type of guy that always pulls out the Dad Joke of, “Convenience fee? That sure isn’t convenient for me.”

There has long been a call for Ticketmaster, which is under the Live Nation Entertainment umbrella, to change their ways and do something about the excessive prices and their shell-game-esque fees. It’s a very complicated issue, and in short, the problem is that ticket sales are intertwined with booking and management and venues and promoters, which we broke down in way more detail here.

So it’s great to see that, in the past year or so, there have been many steps in the right direction to end Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s reign of terror when it comes to excessive ticket pricing. Back in April of last year, the Justice Department sued both Ticketmaster and Live Nation for running an illegal monopoly. Then in March of this year, President Trump signed an executive order to ban ticket scalping and ensure competition laws were enforced.

Fast forward to today, and the Federal Trade Commission (as well as seven states) got in on the fun and also sued the two parties for deceptive ticket pricing and unfair ticket practices. Specifically, the FTC pointed out in the lawsuit that the Defendants (Ticketmaster & Live Nation) have enabled the system to where they can “triple dip,” as you can read in the excerpt below:

“Defendants have reaped massive profits by misrepresenting the total price of tickets to consumers, who pay billions of dollars each year in mandatory fees not reflected in the list price… Defendants earn significant revenue from ticket resales.

When reselling tickets brokers purchased from Ticketmaster, Defendants can ‘triple dip’ on fees, collecting fees from: (1) brokers when they purchase the tickets on the primary market, (2) brokers, again, when Ticketmaster sells their tickets on Ticketmaster’s secondary market, and, finally, (3) consumers who purchase tickets from Ticketmaster on its secondary market.”

GET EM’ FTC!

Once again, as a fan of music and attending sporting events, my hopes are up. The only thing I’m concerned about? The prior lawsuit and executive order I mentioned didn’t result in a noticeable and expedited change to the ticket buying process, at least from my vantage point. It seems as though it might take a dogpile on top of Ticketmaster and Live Nation from every angle to really enact some change in the space. Here’s to hoping the FTC’s latest lawsuit will really kick the Ticketmaster and Live Nation overhaul into gear.

Though I might be skeptical about what this lawsuit could really do, Steven Parker, the executive director of the National Independent Venue Association, says that this step by the FTC is the right one… and a very important one:

“Today’s lawsuit has given credibility to what fans, artists, and independent stages have believed for years: Live Nation and Ticketmaster exploit their dominance not just in concert promotion and primary ticketing, but in the resale market as well. The FTC and seven states now allege that the same company that controls nearly 80% of major concert ticketing has been enabling scalpers to game Ticketmaster’s system, reselling tickets back to fans at massive markups.”

Cue up Zach Bryan’s “Burn, Burn, Burn” from his All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster: Live From Red Rocks album:

The post FTC Officially Sues Ticketmaster, Live Nation For Deceptive Pricing & Unfair Ticketing Practices first appeared on Whiskey Riff.