If you’re hearing a lot about this Ticketmaster Lawsuit in the headlines recently, then just know that it is about both Ticketmaster and Live Nation. And just keep on reading the details of this case, because there is genuine evidence of how things were being manipulated behind the scenes, and the customers who were eager to buy the tickets were the ones who were unaware of all this. Yes, they were being cheated on, and all of this got caught, and now it is all under investigation. So, let’s just talk about this lawsuit and see what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has to say about all this.
Why’s everyone mad at Ticketmaster?
Well, let’s just go over the main claim of this lawsuit first. So, according to the main complaint in this case, Ticketmaster tied up with large brokers out there and some scalpers as well, who are known to scoop up tickets in bulk. And these are the very people who are responsible for flipping the ticket prices higher. It’s just a straight-up cheating of the customers who are out there to genuinely buy these tickets, that’s all!
How did Ticketmaster get this big?
Let’s first take a good look at the history of Ticketmaster, shall we? So, back in 2010, Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation. And that thing back then helped it get even bigger. And that’s the reason why Ticketmaster is among the largest ones that handles a large share of concert ticketing in the country.
What’s the 2025 case about?
Alrighty, so now’s the time to talk about the three main areas that this case goes over. Here:
The filing focuses on three main areas.
- Working with scalpers and brokers: As we already told you, Ticketmaster has the allegiances against them to work with bulk buyers, not just some random scalpers, but brokers as well. We’re talking about big names like TradeDesk, etc. For example, one broker out there allegedly bought around 9,000 tickets in bulk for a Beyoncé show and another 8,500 for a Travis Scott show. Though the thing to note here is that the ticket-buying limit is just set to 8 tickets per account.
- Violations of the BOTS Act: And then there is this law that is mainly being talked about in this case because it is the one that targets specifically the automated bulk purchases of tickets. And according to the claims in this case, Ticketmaster actually failed to comply with it, and other than that, they even got huge profits from the fees and reselling of already bought tickets.
- Hidden and misleading fees: The pricing model is described as a “bait‑and‑switch,” and for those who don’t know yet, it is when the checkout total jumps from the headline price because of add‑on charges. It was kinda a common thing at this platform.
How much money are we talking about?
And in case you’re just wondering how big a case this is, well, from 2019 to 2024 alone, the resale fees amounted to around $3.7 billion. Can you even believe that? That’s just HUGE! This was one of the biggest reasons why there was so much backlash against Ticketmaster.
They’ve got the evidence
Yup, they have got the evidence too. How and what? Well, according to the filing, internal communications clearly show the long-running awareness of bulk flipping. For example, one 2018 note said something like “We call one guy a broker and another a scalper, but they’re doing the same thing, which is flipping thousands of tickets.” And that’s not just it, investigators also pointed out how they found five brokers out there that the access to or were somehow tied to almost 6,300 accounts.
