FTC Sues Ticketmaster, Alleging Illegal Coordination With Brokers and Bait-and-Switch Pricing

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment Thursday (Sept. 18), alleging that they illegally sold event tickets acquired by brokers and deceived consumers and artists about prices and policies.

The complaint alleges that Ticketmaster violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act) by allowing brokers to buy tickets in the primary market in numbers that exceed artists’ ticket limits, selling those tickets at a “substantial markup” in the secondary market, and engaging in bait-and-switch pricing that concealed mandatory fees, the FTC said in a Thursday press release.

“President Donald Trump made it clear in his March executive order that the federal government must protect Americans from being ripped off when they buy tickets to live events,” FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in the release.

Trump signed an executive order March 31 directing the attorney general and the FTC to ensure that competition laws are enforced in the concert and entertainment industry.

In its lawsuit, the FTC seeks civil penalties and additional monetary relief, according to the Thursday press release.

Neither Live Nation nor Ticketmaster immediately replied to PYMNTS’ request for comment on the lawsuit.

It was reported Tuesday (Sept. 16) that the FTC was probing whether Ticketmaster has adequately enforced the BOTS Act, which bans automated software from bypassing ticket limits.

In that report, Ticketmaster said it blocks 200 million bot attempts per day.

“We believe the FTC has a fundamental misunderstanding of Ticketmaster’s policies,” Ticketmaster said.

The FTC sued ticket reseller Key Investment Group and its affiliated companies, including Epic Seats, TotalTickets.com and Totally Tix, in August. In that case, the regulator alleged that the companies violated the FTC Act and the BOTS Act by using illegal tactics to bypass the ticket purchasing limits implemented by Ticketmaster.

Reached by PYMNTS at the time, a Key Investment Group representative said in an email that the FTC’s lawsuit misapplies the BOTS Act and “threatens to dismantle the secondary ticket market for live events, further consolidating power in the hands of the industry’s largest monopoly.”

In May, the FTC and the Department of Justice opened a public comment period to gather feedback on allegedly unfair and anticompetitive practices in the live event ticketing industry.