FTC sues Live Nation and Ticketmaster over bots, deceptive pricing

The Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of seven states on Thursday sued Live Nation Entertainment and its ticketing arm Ticketmaster, alleging the companies unlawfully allowed brokers and automated software to buy up millions of tickets and resell them at inflated prices. The complaint, filed in federal court in California, accuses the companies of violating the 2016 Better Online Ticket Sales Act and engaging in deceptive pricing that harmed consumers and artists.

According to the complaint, Ticketmaster maintained purchase limits publicly while tacitly allowing brokers to exceed those limits, enabling large-scale resale that generated additional fees for the company. The FTC alleges one broker bought more than 9,000 tickets for a single concert during a high-profile 2023 tour, and that in 2018 five brokers managed 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts holding more than 246,000 tickets across nearly 2,600 events. The agency further claims Ticketmaster collected nearly 1 billion in resale fees from 2019 through 2024 and that consumers paid more than 16.4 billion in mandatory fees over that period. The complaint also contends that Ticketmaster has displayed deceptively low...