7 States Join FTC Lawsuit Against Live Nation, Ticketmaster Over Resale Practices

The FTC accused the companies of deceptive pricing by advertising ticket prices lower than what consumers ultimately have to pay.

An advertisement for Ticketmaster is viewed along an area reserved for special guests on the sideline of the field before an NFL football game in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 15, 2024, Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states sued Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, on Sept. 18, alleging that the companies engaged in illegal ticket resale practices.

The complaint alleges that Ticketmaster and Live Nation “tacitly worked” with brokers and allowed them to evade security measures designed to prevent buyers from exceeding ticket purchase limits.

The illegally obtained tickets were later resold at inflated prices in the companies’ secondary marketplace, generating “massive profits” for Live Nation and Ticketmaster, according to the complaint.

The two companies are also accused of deceiving artists and consumers by claiming to have imposed ticket purchase limits, but routinely allowing brokers to bypass those limits, the FTC stated.

The FTC alleged that Ticketmaster continued to sell tickets to brokers it knew owned thousands of accounts and used proxy IP addresses to circumvent ticket purchase limits.

“In fact, a senior Ticketmaster executive admitted in an internal email, that copied Live Nation leadership, that the companies ‘turn a blind eye as a matter of policy’ to brokers’ violations of posted ticket limits,” the complaint stated.

The FTC cited Ticketmaster’s 2018 internal review that showed five brokers controlled 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts and owned 246,407 concert tickets for thousands of live events.

The FTC also accused the companies of deceptive pricing by advertising ticket list prices lower than the cost consumers ultimately have to pay, noting that Ticketmaster’s mandatory fees are as high as 44 percent of a ticket’s cost.

“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us. It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show,“ FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in the statement.

“The Trump-Vance FTC is working hard to ensure that fans have a shot at buying fair-priced tickets, and today’s lawsuit is a monumental step in that direction.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Live Nation and Ticketmaster for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

The seven states joining the FTC in the lawsuit are Virginia, Utah, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois, and Colorado.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order in March directing the FTC to work with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that scalpers who buy event tickets in bulk and resell them at inflated prices fully comply with the Internal Revenue Code and other applicable laws.

Trump stated in his order that ticket scalpers use bots and other means to purchase large quantities of tickets and resell them at “an enormous markup” in the secondary market. Some fans paid up to 70 times the face value to get a ticket to see their favorite artists, according to the order.