Stay Nation and Ticketmaster sued by FTC over alleged ‘unlawful ticket resale techniques’
The US’s Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) has sued Stay Nation and its ticketing arm, Ticketmaster, accusing the corporate of benefiting from scalpers working on its platform.
In a criticism filed on Thursday (September 18) within the US District Courtroom for the Central District of California, the FTC accused Ticketmaster of failing to uphold its personal ticket buy limits, in impact permitting scalpers to purchase up giant numbers of tickets and to resell them on the secondary market at markups.
The FTC says Ticketmaster is motivated to do that as a result of it makes extra charges on the tickets’ resale.
Ticketmaster “can ‘triple dip’ on charges, amassing charges from: (1) brokers once they buy the tickets on the first market, (2) brokers, once more, when Ticketmaster sells their tickets on Ticketmaster’s secondary market, and, lastly, (3) shoppers who buy tickets from Ticketmaster on its secondary market,” acknowledged the criticism.
Becoming a member of the FTC within the lawsuit are the district attorneys of seven states: Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
The criticism, which you’ll learn in full right here, alleges that Ticketmaster violated the BOTS Act, the 2016 regulation forbidding using bots to purchase tickets in on-line shops. Stay Nation has prior to now supported the BOTS Act.
The FTC notes that Stay Nation’s coverage is to permit artists to set ticket buy limits themselves, however “in personal… defendants have tacitly labored with these exact same scalpers, permitting them to unlawfully buy hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in tickets within the main market, in order that defendants can extract extra revenue for themselves when reselling these tickets on the secondary market.”
The FTC alleges that Ticketmaster has been conscious for years that sure ticket consumers have violated the restrict and “turned a blind eye” to the follow.
The criticism states that in 2018, Ticketmaster recognized 5 ticket brokers who managed 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts and possessed greater than 246,000 tickets to almost 2,600 occasions.
“Defendants have tacitly labored with these exact same scalpers, permitting them to unlawfully buy hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in tickets within the main market, in order that defendants can extract extra revenue for themselves when reselling these tickets on the secondary market.”
FTC criticism in opposition to Stay Nation/Ticketmaster
“In public, defendants preserve that their enterprise mannequin is at odds with brokers that routinely exceed ticket limits. In personal, defendants acknowledge that their enterprise mannequin and backside line profit from brokers stopping bizarre People from buying tickets to the reveals they wish to see on the costs artists set,” the criticism states.
The FTC additionally alleges that Ticketmaster is engaged in “bait-and-switch” techniques during which the corporate shows “deceptively low ticket costs to shoppers” and finally ends up charging “rather more” at checkout.
Stay Nation introduced in 2023 that it was switching to an “all-in” pricing mannequin at its owned venues within the US, underneath which the ultimate worth, together with charges however excluding gross sales taxes, is proven on the very starting of the ticket buy course of. CEO Michael Rapino has mentioned that the swap to “all-in” pricing has confirmed to be a hit, and the corporate has backed efforts to make all-in ticket pricing the regulation.
Regardless of this, the FTC alleges that “during the last decade, the primary worth the buyer has seen on Ticketmaster’s platform has nearly by no means been the value the buyer pays.”
“In accordance with inner Ticketmaster paperwork, the common share of charges charged on tickets ranges from 24% to 44% of the overall worth. From 2019 by means of 2024, shoppers paid over $16.4 billion in obligatory charges on ticket purchases from Ticketmaster,” the criticism states.
The lawsuit is separate from the antitrust motion that the US Division of Justice launched in opposition to Stay Nation and Ticketmaster in Could 2024. That lawsuit alleges that the corporate engaged in “monopolization and different illegal conduct that thwarts competitors in markets throughout the stay leisure trade.”
The DOJ lawsuit is in search of to interrupt up Stay Nation and Ticketmaster, undoing a years-old settlement that allowed the 2 to merge regardless of considerations over the corporate doubtlessly having fun with monopoly energy within the stay leisure enterprise. The DOJ has accused Stay Nation of violating the phrases of that settlement.
In its new lawsuit, the FTC says Stay Nation/Ticketmaster controls “roughly 80% or extra of main live performance venues’ main ticketing for live shows and a rising share of ticket resales within the secondary market.”
As of 12pm ET on Thursday (September 18), Stay Nation shares had been down 3.6% on the New York Inventory Trade, buying and selling at round $163.30 per share.Music Enterprise Worldwide
