"Ticketmaster, which controls 80% of primary ticketing for major concert venues, ignored brokers' violations of ticket purchasing limits set by artists, allowing Ticketmaster to reap $3.7bn in resale fees between 2019 and 2024, the FTC alleged. Those actions along with Ticketmaster's failure to disclose the full price of tickets, including fees, upfront violated consumer protection law, the agency said. Representatives for Ticketmaster and Live Nation did not immediately respond to requests for comment."
"Ticketmaster faced intense criticism when billions of requests from Swift fans, bots and ticket resellers overwhelmed its website and the company canceled a planned ticket sale to the general public. Ticketmaster has known since 2018 that resellers violate its policies, the FTC said in its lawsuit on Thursday. The agency cited an internal email from a Ticketmaster executive that copied Live Nation leadership stating that the companies turn a blind eye as a matter of policy to the violations."
The FTC and seven states filed a lawsuit in California against Live Nation and its ticketing arm, Ticketmaster, accusing the companies of enabling ticket brokers to buy large quantities of tickets and resell them at high markups that cost fans millions. Ticketmaster controls about 80% of primary ticketing for major concert venues and reportedly collected $3.7 billion in resale fees between 2019 and 2024. The lawsuit alleges Ticketmaster ignored brokers' violations of artist-set purchasing limits and failed to disclose full ticket prices, including fees, upfront. The complaint cites an internal 2018 email indicating a company policy of turning a blind eye. The case follows the 2022 Swift ticketing debacle and a 2024 DOJ lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The filing names Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia as co-plaintiffs and coincided with a drop in Live Nation shares.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]