Explanation of Ticket Manager’s Letter to the FTC.
Ticketmaster and independent venues are fighting.
Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Ticketmaster is trying to address the FTC lawsuit with several steps aimed at preventing scalpers from abusing the platform. But the National Independent Venues Association (NIVA) and the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) say that’s too little, too late. In a letter to Congress he obtained diverse, Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation claim that “Ticketmaster is doing more than anyone else to fight bots and get tickets into the hands of real fans.” Here’s what you need to know about this back-and-forth.
The FTC and seven states filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster on September 18. The complaint alleges that the two companies collude with ticket sellers, allowing scalpers to purchase more tickets than the advertised limit and allowing them to be resold at inflated prices. This would be a violation of the Best Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS ACT). They also accuse Ticketmaster of a “bait and switch” by misrepresenting the price of tickets. The lawsuit blames the TradeDesk tool, which allowed sellers to track their sales, for being used to mislead customers.
Ticketmaster has begun some new anti-scalper measures, which include having sellers use either their Social Security Number (SSN) or taxpayer identity verification and AI tools that are supposed to help “evaluate and cancel tickets purchased by bots faster.” The company will also divest from TradeDesk.
Ticketmaster has flatly denied violating the BOTS Act. But the independent venues weren’t buying it.
NIVA called the measures “too little, too late.” statement. “This appears to be an attempt to clean up their damaged public image in the wake of the FTC’s powerful BOTS Act and deceptive practices case against them,” they wrote. “Based on that lawsuit and this letter, we have seen clear evidence that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are cooperating with scalpers, and resale platforms like StubHub and Vivid Seats are benefiting daily from that.”
Neto echoed their sentiments, writing that “Neither Ticketmaster nor any other platform should engage in reselling tickets above face value. This practice harms artists and their fans alike.”
No, that was an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Biden-era Justice Department. This issue is still ongoing, though Radical rotation In the Ministry of Justice.