FTC and Seven States Sue Ticketmaster Over Alleged Coordination With Scalpers 58
The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from seven states filed an 84-page lawsuit Thursday in federal court in California against Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster subsidiary. The suit alleges the companies knowingly allow ticket brokers to use multiple accounts to circumvent purchase limits and acquire thousands of tickets per event for resale at higher prices.
The FTC claims this practice violates the Better Online Ticket Sales Act and generates hundreds of millions in revenue through a "triple dip" fee structure -- collecting fees on initial broker purchases, then from both brokers and consumers on secondary market sales. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson cited President Trump's March executive order requiring federal protection against ticketing practices. The lawsuit arrives one month after the FTC sued Maryland broker Key Investment Group over Taylor Swift tour price-gouging and follows the Department of Justice's 2024 monopoly suit against Live Nation.
The FTC claims this practice violates the Better Online Ticket Sales Act and generates hundreds of millions in revenue through a "triple dip" fee structure -- collecting fees on initial broker purchases, then from both brokers and consumers on secondary market sales. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson cited President Trump's March executive order requiring federal protection against ticketing practices. The lawsuit arrives one month after the FTC sued Maryland broker Key Investment Group over Taylor Swift tour price-gouging and follows the Department of Justice's 2024 monopoly suit against Live Nation.
Shut them down! (Score:5, Insightful)
A company that effectively owns all the venues for events is a de facto monopoly. Even selling a single ticket is abuse of that monopoly, given no one else can host the event(s).
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A company that effectively owns all the venues for events is a de facto monopoly.
I don't believe Ticket Master/Live Nation owns (many, any?) of the venues, but you're right that they do have exclusivity for selling tickets at said venues, for pretty much any and all events that matter to those venues.
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Actually, they own a few and have a contractual lock on many many more.
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Traditionally they have gotten away with it because they are only exclusive for online purchase. Usually you can go to the venue box office or call and buy tickets.
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Traditionally they have gotten away with it because they are only exclusive for online purchase. Usually you can go to the venue box office or call and buy tickets.
Most of the time those tickets are also sold through Ticketmaster. I can't remember the last time I bought tickets at a venue that didn't have "Ticketmaster" printed on them boldly.
Re: Shut them down! (Score:2)
Taylor Swift (Score:2)
I want to see Taylor Swift to a worldwide negotiation with Tickemaster with public posting of the details, revenue numbers, per ticket tax, stadium cost, fees, etc. so that we can get a complete picture of just how deep this goes.
It's been reported that established musical acts make most of their money by touring and selling merchandise at the shows.
Ticket Lottery (Score:5, Interesting)
Last story on Ticketmaster a poster here mentioned that in Japan for large events they do a lottery system and did a little digging and it seems like an interesting idea.
Personally I think it's maybe the only possible solution to this issue. It simply comes down to the fact that concerts are a once-in-a-lifetime type event and will always be limited, a performer can only do so many shows so you are guaranteed a distorted market.
https://www.japanconcertticket... [japanconcerttickets.com]
The alternative here is an actual free market (which works in this case as this total luxury-good territory, nobody requires a concert to live) where everything is auction based and concerts are no longer something for every-man but something you only do on special occasions since high profile ones are going to be very expensive, which feels shitty but that's reality of what the demand is.
I personally would like to see performers do more multi-dates in cities when shows sell out, like if it's sold out and say a waitlist can fill another show, do another show. Of course that's easy for me to say, I'm not the one doing it.
Another thing I would love to see more of is virtual tickets where I could buy a streaming ticket for the night and watch the show from home. I think it would take some of the sting out of not being able to get tickets or afford them. Some bands like King Gizzard just livestream the shows on Youtube for free which is pretty cool but live shows are the moneymaker for a lot bands but if I could buy a streaming pass for $20 I'd be inclined to do it. Of course then you might have an issue where the show is 1/2 empty because everyone did it.
VR concerts (Score:2)
Another thing I would love to see more of is virtual tickets where I could buy a streaming ticket for the night and watch the show from home. I think it would take some of the sting out of not being able to get tickets or afford them.
I can see in the future some sort of "VR concert" where you can "attend" (by wearing a VR set) a live event, and experience it as, say, a front-row spectator.
They would still exist as live events, but be less 'luxury good' only available to the rich/lucky few.
Kinda like how the VCR lifted the limits of how you can view movies, etc.
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The Meta Quest series of VR headsets have something similar to this where you can be "in the round" so to speak or watch from an audience perspective. Some of it is free, some of it is paid if I'm not mistaken.
Only half the problem (Score:5, Informative)
They demand exclusivity with venues.
Which means you either hand over all your booking and ticket sales (for a fee, of course) to them, or not be able to book any Ticketmaster artists. If you haven't considered the question, you may not recognize that artist-choice and ticketing are two of the biggest levers a club owner has to manage their business. Most of the other costs of business are pretty inflexible - about your only other cost-control options are fucking over your workers and watering the beer.
This does a couple things - clubs become more like farmers - they get to soak up all the risk with none of the control. It also gives TM more control over artists - I've seen less info on how TM squeezes them, but don't think that isn't there. If an artist doesn't like their terms, they don't get to play their venues.
And of course they wet their beak at every single touch point along the way.
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True, I should have gotten to that as well since we are talking what would have to be laws basically but yeah the Live Nation/Ticketmaster thing of owning venues and being the exclusive seller and charging the fees and the whole thing is rotten for sure.
If we are talking about a corporate bust-up of the company I am certainly down
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Agree completely. Owning venues and requiring exclusivity is plainly anticompetitive.
It would be one thing if they were effectively a monopoly BUT were benevolent and did good by their customers and artists and venues ... but they aren't, and further by allowing and profiting from the scalping secondary market they make a terrible situation all the worse.
Fuck em I say.
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The 2010 merger should have never been allowed and should be reversed. Fuck em indeed.
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Another thing I would love to see more of is virtual tickets where I could buy a streaming ticket for the night and watch the show from home.
Or just wait until the first night of the tour for someone to capture the stream and upload it to the high seas.
I think most people attend concerts for the experience of going with someone else. Significant other, besties, lover on the side (just don't get caught on the kiss cam), etc. Also, live music is a completely different experience with the roar of the crowd, the drinks and junk food, and how absolutely insanely loud the sound system is. Streaming the show from home isn't the same thing, and I don
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Ehh phones have gotten way better but it's no substitute for getting the sound off the board and some real videography.
I am biased since i love the band but look at what KGATLW does for free [youtu.be], this a concert from last night. Sounds great, looks great, everything's in focus and the bass isn't blowing out the tiny mic.
Is it a substitute for the real live experience? Of course not but it's not really a comparison between streaming and the live show since those are incomparable but between streaming and nothing
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Ehh phones have gotten way better but it's no substitute for getting the sound off the board and some real videography.
I probably should've been clearer that one of the objections bands probably have to this is the piracy aspect. The second you put a good quality stream online, someone will capture and share it.
Usually most bigger name acts do put out a video of their show at the end of the tour. Granted, the waiting sucks.
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Yeah for sure that's a concern but I am banking on a couple things:
1. People will want to see *their* show in their town that's happening that night and probably even as it's happening or not long after.
2. By nature of paying it would probably be on a token/login system so a pirate would have to pay for that show to get it, which they would be willing to do in many cases..
3. That pirates wouldn't be too inclined to rip every show every night since that becomes a lot of work and for your smaller or midrange
Re:Ticket Lottery (Score:4, Insightful)
All they need to do is tie the ticket purchase to an identity and require ID at the door while allowing returns on the tickets for when things go wrong and someone can't make the show. There's no legitimate need for a resale market for tickets if things are set up properly.
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All they need to do is tie the ticket purchase to an identity and require ID at the door while allowing returns on the tickets for when things go wrong and someone can't make the show. There's no legitimate need for a resale market for tickets if things are set up properly.
This is basically what the major theme parks do. They got fed up with unauthorized ticket resellers quite awhile ago.
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Concert I went to just this week used DICE for tickets which were phone only and the code only shows up 2 hours before doors open but you can resell on their app, which seems similar to what you're saying.
Oddly for this venue though once we showed up nobody actually scanned it, we just walked in but that's neither here nor there...
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Huh, sounds neat. Glad to hear there are some sort of alternatives to Ticketmaster for at least some independent venues.
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The thin is, the artists WANT to keep the prices down because they (or at least their managers) understand that fans able to get tickets and see concerts is a driving force for their fandom. You don't get big or even stay big by only being seen by a few wealthy patrons (or their kids).
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And I do appreciate that but it's at the core of the whole scalper issue is that by doing that they are creating a distorted market since the demand price that people are willing to pay is higher than the sell value so there will always be a black market unless something is done and brute force doesn't seem to be working.
Just as important as the pricing is the first-come-first-serve nature of sales, lottery solves for both.
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I honestly can't believe that a human being made the c
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How are kids buying concert tickets online on their own? Also it isn't really gambling because if you don't get a ticket you don't actually still pay the money. It's like calling a free sweepstakes gambling, yeah technically but it's missing some critical elements of what the negatives of what we call gambling are. Kids are taught games-of-chance exceedingly early in every society.
Everyone hates ticket lotteries. Forcing your fans to jump through hoops creates serious ill-will towards the artist.
Maybe but right now as we speak how big are people fans of the current system of first-come-first-serve, scalping, reselling a
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You're not actually solving the problem. You are simply creating another gameable system in front of the purchase. Your fake solution isn't even remotely related to the problem we actually have of widespread corruption and collusion within the market. Lotteries and all forms of gambling, are known as a source of and beacon for corruption and organized crime. Adding gambling
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Talk about ignoring most of a comment, you really think I have an issue with busting up Ticketmaster from what I have said? I want to reverse the 2010 merger between them and Live Nation. Fuck em, that's not my point at all, you're the one cherry picking now.
You're ignoring this is already working in other places.
You're ignoring the fundamental economic issue of bringing some notion of fairness to an item with no actual value but what people are willing to put on it. Whatever alternative solution you have
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You also have to deal with defining fair to begin with, it's impossible for everybody to attend every event they want at a price they want. Impossible.
The problem is that unless you banned secondary sales entirely, it even with a lottery it still ultimately comes down to a game of who's willing to open their wallet the widest. People will still just enter a bunch of lotteries for the most popular artists and then sell/trade their tickets to get into the show they actually wanted. I think the best we can do is to just preventing mass purchases of tickets by resellers.
The aspect of some people missing out because all the cheap seats sold out in a flash is
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There are no recent examples of any any markets actually getting better for consumers after being broken up. Bel
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By all means give us your legislative solution to bar these people from boarding companies. I agree with you on spirit and we're both in wishful land but I think i'm little more grounded here, I have some precedent.
If you got criminal shit on them I am down for it but is there?
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Personally I think it's maybe the only possible solution to this issue. It simply comes down to the fact that concerts are a once-in-a-lifetime type event and will always be limited
There is a solution: Ticketmaster just profit from resale and don't want to do it.
Basically: Make it first come first serve. Each person can register 1 ticket. You have to supply a name and ID after the transaction. The ticket is permanently assigned to that name just like an airline ticket and cannot be transferred.
If you
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That's basically the Japan setup as I read it, purchasers name is printed on the ticket, tickets are mailed and not printed at home.
Only difference is lottery vs FCFS
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Well Lottery vs FCFS is the major unique thing there.
The advantage of FCFS is more diligent fans actually get a better chance. With the lottery people who are marginally interested and don't jump on the opportunity Day 1 still have an equal chance: Which sucks for the diligent fans who were waiting for months have a reduced chance, because people who are entirely new to the artist and will hear about them for the first time during the lottery period will be interested and sign-up before it closes.. Th
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Well the Japan thing is that fan clubs usually get first crack so I guess it's sort off a hybrid system. I wish people would read the thing I posted it addresses a lot of this. The lottery thing isnt just who gets the good tickets but who get tickets at all. Fanclub seems one of the least imperfect ways to do it, like how can the ticketing system determine who is a "real fan"?
The difference with an industry conference is that they rarely if ever "sell out", there's room for everyone and in many cases the
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Indeed, most oversubscribed events are by lottery in Japan. You sign up, and if you are lucky you get the opportunity to buy a ticket. The prices are flat, there is no demand pricing or any of that bullshit.
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Thanks are you already familiar or have used it? It feels like a broadly popular method over there but I'd be interested to know if there is pushback.
There's no perfect way around this issue but a lottery feels (and this is about feels) a bit more fair.
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I have used it once. The main issue is that some events only allow you to apply if you have an address in Japan, a common issue with things like loyalty cards too. Fortunately I can get around that, but most people can't.
I guess somebody forgot to pay their bribes (Score:1, Troll)
So if they want this to go away all they have to do is buy some more Trump coin just like the United Arab Emirates did.
Seriously the UAE gave Trump 2 billion dollars through his cryptocurrency nonsense. And it didn't even make the news. Never mind that plane guitar gave him
We are at the point where Ticketmaster is going to do a calculat
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But the fact that that calculation is going on is fucking insane and we should all be freaking the fuck out right now
As I heard someone say recently - we're now towards the end of that authoritarian playbook, not the beginning of it. Should've been freaking the fuck out long ago.
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Or it could just be some lawyers looking for another payday. Can never have too many yachts, beachfront homes, or luxury RVs.
Last time they got sued, my partner and I ended up with a whole bunch of credits/points/some type of virtual scrip that could be redeemed to see bands we'd never heard of. I'm totally looking forward to being able to score free tickets to Ryan and The Chumbuckets - A Nickelback Tribute at some bar in Tampa.
That would still be on Trump (Score:2, Insightful)
Believe it or not it isn't that hard to hire people who aren't easily corruptible. There are lots of competent people who enter public service to actually be in public service. Revolving doors do suck but they aren't universal.
It's about the culture and yeah when you've got Trump at the top then shit's going to rot from the top down.
But I think you're mixing up a class action lawsuit from a private attorney with the actual FTC bringing a suit
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But I think you're mixing up a class action lawsuit from a private attorney with the actual FTC bringing a suit.
Yeah, the last major lawsuit was a class action IIRC. Here I was hoping for more points redeemable for tickets to bands you’ll pretend to enjoy.
Still, Ticketmaster does suck giant hairy donkey balls, so if the current administration has it in for them, I'll defer to the wisdom of the late Grumpy Cat [reddit.com] for this one.
Re: I guess somebody forgot to pay their bribes (Score:2)
Christ you're stupid.
Can you not proof read?
FTC or FCC?
Guitar or Qatar?
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Really?! (Score:2)
The lawsuit arrives one month after the FTC sued Maryland broker Key Investment Group over Taylor Swift tour price-gouging...
I'm surprised the administration didn't de-fund the FTC over them going to bat for Taylor Swift fans...
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The lawsuit arrives one month after the FTC sued Maryland broker Key Investment Group over Taylor Swift tour price-gouging...
Ever seen the pricing of the merch on Taylor Swift's store, or how she'll release like 15 different color variants of the same vinyl record at $30 a pop? The only problem she has with price gouging is when she's not the one scoring the profits.
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Increase ticket prices!! (Score:2)
Just make the "list price" whatever the scalpers are charging. People will pay it! That's why the scalpers are in business.