By Nikita Dhawan
Correspondent
The Federal Trade Commission and several other states are suing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, for permitting and coordinating with scalpers, forcing consumers to pay significantly higher prices for tickets and events, CBS reports.
Joining the FTC suit were attorneys general in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
According to AP News, the FTC pointed out how both Live Nation and Ticketmaster often utilize a “bait and switch” tactic, advertising their tickets to be cheap but ultimately burdening consumers with considerable hidden fees.
These fees can amount to as much as 44% of the original ticket price, CNN reports.
Additionally, the agency highlighted that despite claims to do so, both companies fail to limit the number of tickets an individual is able to purchase. Instead, resellers are able to create bot accounts to purchase millions of tickets with ease.
Rather than condemning the practice of price gouging, the FTC accuses Ticketmaster of actively cooperating with scalpers to drive prices up, allowing the resellers to buy millions of tickets and sell them at a higher price on Ticketmaster’s own platform.
Ticketmaster, in turn benefits from these sales through the additional fees consumers have to pay which, according to CNN, amount to about $16 billion from 2019 to 2024.
AP news reports how Ticketmaster controls ticketing for about 80% of major venues within the United States, making it nearly a monopoly in the live event market. With higher ticket prices, consumers are having a harder time attending the concerts and events of their favorite artists.
FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson weighed in on this issue, saying “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.”
As described by CNN, the FTC claims Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS), an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2016 during his first term. The act bans individuals from using software and bots to purchase resale tickets, and subsequently bans platforms from selling tickets acquired through these means.
While there is no clear number as to how much Live Nation and Ticketmaster may have to pay, The New York Post reports that under the BOTS act, the FTC can sue for as much as $53,000 per violation. If found liable, Live Nation may have to pay upwards of hundreds of billions of dollars in fines.
