The FTC continues Ticketmaster on the pricing tactics of “Depotive” tickets

The FTC and the seven states have continued Ticketmaster and its Live Nation parent company for allegedly “deceptive” tactics of tickets, according to a press release on Thursday. The Federal Regulation Agency says that Ticketmaster is “tacitly coordinated with brokers”, allowing them to buy millions of dollars in tickets, just to resell them at a higher cost for the person who really wants to attend a given concert.

The FTC claims that Ticketmaster is also aware of the ticket brokers by regularly bypassing security measures by creating accounts using IP Proxy addresses and, beyond, offers technological support to brokers via software called tradededesk which helps brokers to follow and aggregate purchases from several accounts. The interface allows resellers to manage much easier residents.

According to the FTC. And the agency quotes an internal ticketmaster e-mail which shows that a manager admitted that they “turn their eyes in the event of a policy” to brokers buying more tickets than they should be authorized.

The FTC notes that consumers spent 82.6 billion dollars on ticketmaster tickets from 2019 to 2024 and that the company controls around 80% of the main ticket office for the main concert halls.

Ticketmaster would also have deceived consumers on the real cost of a ticket, announcing the prices at no cost indicated. These costs can reach 44% of the cost of the ticket, according to the FTC, and do not appear until the very end of the transaction. These costs totaled $ 16.4 billion from 2019 to 2025, according to the agency.

A more aggressive posture against Ticketmaster has been underway since the presidency of Joe Biden, but the current FTC leadership wants everyone to grant the credit for this most recent decision, which is certainly an escalation.

“President Donald Trump clearly said in his March executive decree that the federal government was to protect the Americans from scams when they buy tickets for live events,” FTC president Andrew Ferguson said in a press release.

“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” continued Ferguson. “It should not cost an arm and a leg to bring the family to a baseball game or attend the favorite musician show. The FTC Trump-Vance works hard to make sure that fans have a chance to buy tickets at fair prices, and today’s trial is a monumental step in this direction.”

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