Recommendations of the Editorial team
Ticketmaster and his parent company Live Nation Entertainment have long been criticized. The dynamic price system of the concert card provider is just one of the things that not only belching musicians and fans badly.
On Thursday (September 18), the Federal Trade Commission and seven other US states filed a complaint with a California court because, in their opinion, the company violated FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act.
Live Nation is accused of limiting the number of tickets that a person can buy for an event, while resellers can handle these restrictions by creating thousands of ticket master accounts.
A software platform called Tradedesk, which is also part of live nation, even enables brokers to pursue tickets over several accounts at the same time, which makes it noticeably easier to resale.
Internal emails are suspected of
As can be seen from internal emails, the employees should deliberately not look when it became clear that brokers were at work. However, there was always evidence of this. Allegedly, the two companies also rejected the introduction of technologies such as the review by third parties, which would prevent mass ticket sales, since according to a email that was cited in the complaint, they were “too effective”.
“It should not be unaffordable to go to a baseball game with the family or to visit the concerts of their favorite musician,” says the reasoning of the FTC’s lawsuit in a message. You work hard to ensure that fans have the opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices.
Background: Last year, the US representative house said goodbye to the so-called ticket act (ticket stands for Transparency in Charges for key events ticketing), the ticket seller on the primary and secondary market is obliged to disclose the total prices in advance. It should also be banned that fees are gradually added at the ticket price during the purchase process.
The lawsuit has no consequences for Europe, it is only aimed at the US market, but other legal requirements apply. In Great Britain and other European countries, however, Ticketmaster is suspected of deliberately designing its pricing for tickets for the Reunion shows of Oasis. Due to the dynamic ticketing, standing room cards for £ 350 were suddenly made in advance from standing room cards for £ 150. Nevertheless, all concerts were completely sold out within minutes.