Ticketmaster and Live Nation Sued by FTC Over Scalping and Fees
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging that the companies have knowingly profited from ticket scalpers on their platform, according to a report from Music Business Worldwide.
Filed on September 18 in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the FTC’s complaint accuses Ticketmaster of failing to enforce its own purchase limits, enabling large-scale brokers to buy up thousands of tickets and resell them at inflated prices. The commission alleges that Ticketmaster profits by “triple dipping” on fees—charging brokers when they purchase tickets, again when those tickets are resold on its secondary platform, and finally from fans who purchase the marked-up tickets.
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The complaint also points to deceptive “bait-and-switch” pricing tactics, where Ticketmaster displays artificially low prices upfront before adding substantial fees at checkout. Internal documents cited by the FTC claim consumers paid more than $16.4 billion in mandatory fees between 2019 and 2024.
District attorneys from seven US states—including Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia—have joined the lawsuit. This case comes on the heels of the US Department of Justice’s ongoing antitrust action, which seeks to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster over alleged monopoly power in the live entertainment industry.
