FTC Ticketmaster sue

FTC and Sev League filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its mother company Live Nation due to tactics of “deceptive” tickets, according to a press statement Thursday. The Federal Organizational Agency says that Ticketmaster “coordinates with allowing mediators”, allowing them to buy millions of dollars tickets, only to resell them at a higher cost for the person who really wants to attend a specific concert.

FTC says that Ticketmaster is also familiar with ticket brokers regularly by security measures by creating accounts using the IP delegate addresses, and then, provides technical support to brokers through programs called Tradedesk that help brokers to track and collect purchases from several accounts. The façade provides distributors much easier.

Only five brokers had more than 6000 Ticketmaster accounts that carry more than 240,000 tickets for more than 2500 event, according to FTC. The agency quotes an internal email from Ticketingmaster who offers an executive official who admitted that they are “turning a blind eye to” brokers who buy more tickets than they should be allowed.

FTC notes that consumers spent 82.6 billion dollars to buy tickets from Ticketmaster from 2019 to 2024, and the company controls about 80 % of the basic tickets for major concert places.

It was also claimed that Ticketmaster had deceived consumers about the real cost of the ticket, as he announced prices without mandatory fees listed. These fees can reach 44 % of the ticket cost, according to FTC, and not until the end of the transaction. The total of these fees reached $ 16.4 billion from 2019 to 2025, according to the agency.

A more aggressive position has been placed against Ticketmaster in business since then Joe Biden’s presidencyBut the current leadership in FTC wants everyone to give Trump thanks to this last step, which is recognized for an escalation.

Andrew Ferguson, head of the Federal Trade Committee in A. press release.

“Live American entertainment is the best in the world and should be all accessible to us,” Ferguson continued. “It should not cost an arm and leg to move the family to the baseball game or attend your favorite music show. FTC TROMP-VANCE works hard to ensure a shot to buy fair tickets, and today the lawsuit is a tremendous step in this direction.”

Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear.