The FTC and seven states have sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for allegedly “deceptive” ticket resale tactics, according to a press release Thursday. The federal regulatory agency says that Ticketmaster is “tacitly coordinating with brokers,” allowing them to buy millions of dollars worth of tickets, just to resell them at a higher cost to the person who actually wants to attend a given concert.
The FTC says Ticketmaster is also aware of ticket brokers regularly bypassing security measures by creating accounts using proxy IP addresses and, beyond that, offers tech support to brokers through software called TradeDesk which helps brokers track and aggregate purchases from multiple accounts. The interface allows resellers to manage resales much easier.
Just five brokers had over 6,000 Ticketmaster accounts holding over 240,000 tickets to more than 2,500 events, according to the FTC. And the agency quotes an internal email from Ticketmaster that shows an executive admitted they “turn a blind eye as a matter of policy” to brokers buying more tickets than they should be allowed.
The FTC notes that consumers spent $82.6 billion buying tickets from Ticketmaster from 2019 to 2024 and the company controls about 80% of the primary ticketing for major concert venues.
Ticketmaster has also allegedly deceived consumers about the true cost of a ticket, advertising the prices without mandatory fees listed. Those fees can be as high as 44% of the cost of the ticket, according to the FTC, and don’t show up until the very end of the transaction. Those fees totaled $16.4 billion from 2019 to 2025, according to the agency.
A more aggressive posture against Ticketmaster has been in the works since Joe Biden’s presidency, but current leadership at the FTC wants everyone to give Trump credit for this most recent move, which is admittedly an escalation.
“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 Ferguson said in a press release.
“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” Ferguson continued. “It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show. 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.”
Ticketmaster didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.
FTC Sues Ticketmaster Over ‘Deceptive’ Ticket Pricing Tactics
