Ticketing
Live Nation is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling last year that said the concert giant couldn’t enforce “opaque and unfair” arbitration agreements against ticketbuyers, warning the justices that the scathing ruling “creates massive uncertainty.”
The decision, issued in October by a lower court, said the contracts Live Nation had forced concertgoers to sign – requiring them to resolve disputes via private arbitration — were “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory” that they were “borderline unintelligible.”
But in a petition to the Supreme Court this week, Live Nation says that the decision must be reversed, warning it would have “far-reaching consequences” for how arbitration works and could potentially cause massive headaches for companies that have long relied on such agreements.
“If allowed to stand, the decision below will enable mass arbitration plaintiffs to continue their abusive strategy of racking up procedural costs to the point of forcing the defendant to capitulate to a settlement, rather than proving their allegations,” Live Nation’s lawyers write. “These highly disruptive consequences reinforce the need for review.”
The appeal to the Supreme Court comes in a class-action lawsuit accusing Live Nation of violating federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert tickets and engaging in “predatory” behavior. Filed in 2022 on behalf of “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of ticket buyers, the case claims Live Nation and Ticketmaster abused their dominance to charge “extraordinarily high” prices to consumers.
Faced with those allegations, Live Nation argued that fans had waived their right to sue in court when they bought their tickets because they had signed arbitration agreements — a common requirement when purchasing tickets and other services from many companies.
In rejecting that argument in October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Live Nation’s agreements were “unconscionable and unenforceable” since they would make it “impossible” for fans to fairly pursue claims against the company.
“Forced to accept terms that can be changed without notice, a plaintiff then must arbitrate under … opaque and unfair rules,” the appeals court wrote at the time. “The rules and the terms are so overly harsh or one-sided as to unequivocally represent a systematic effort to impose arbitration as an inferior forum.”
The ruling described Live Nation’s agreements in scathing terms, calling them “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible” and “poorly drafted and riddled with typos.” The terms were so confusing, the court said, that Live Nation’s own attorneys had “struggled to explain the rules” during a court hearing.
The criticism centered on Live Nation’s decision to alter its terms of use to require fans to submit to “novel and unusual” procedures for “mass arbitration.” That new process, offered by an upstart arbitration firm called New Era ADR, was aimed at handling many cases at once rather than individually, which Live Nation believed was necessitated by aggressive tactics from lawyers representing huge numbers of concertgoers.
But in rejecting that new process, the Ninth Circuit said Live Nation was essentially trying to have its cake and eat it too: “Defendants sought to gain in arbitration some of the advantages of class-wide litigation while suffering few of its disadvantages.”
In this week’s petition to the Supreme Court, it was Live Nation’s turn to level criticism – calling the Ninth Circuit’s ruling a “deeply flawed decision” that exemplified the kind of “judicial hostility” to private arbitration that’s prohibited under federal law.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision below flouts [federal arbitration law], defies this court’s precedents, and threatens to block sensible measures for addressing the new phenomenon of mass arbitration filings,” the company’s lawyers write.
The plaintiffs in the case will file a response in the weeks ahead, and the justices will decide whether to take the case at some point in the next few months. Reps for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have launched an official inquiry into the event ticketing business at the urging of President Donald Trump, the agencies announced Wednesday (May 7).
As part of the inquiry, “the agencies invite members of the public to submit comments and information on harmful practices and on potential regulation or legislation to protect consumers in the industry,” according to a press release. Anyone “impacted by anticompetitive practices in the live concert and entertainment industry” will have 60 days to submit comments to Regulations.gov, with the comment period concluding on July 7.
After the comment period closes, the agencies state they will “use the information in their preparation of the report and recommendations directed by President Trump” in his Executive Order 14254, also known as Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market. Signed by the president during a March 31 meeting in the Oval Office with musician Kid Rock in attendance, the order directed the Attorney General, along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the FTC, to submit a report identifying “recommendations for regulations or legislation necessary to protect consumers” in the industry, including by enforcing the Better Online Tickets Sales (BOTS) Act.
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Passed in 2016, the BOTS Act gives both the DOJ and the FTC broad power to crack down on scalpers who illegally use automated technology to skirt the restrictions placed on high-demand ticket sales and prevents scalpers from buying up the best seats to flip for profit. Yet since its passage in 2016, the BOTS Act has only been used once to prosecute scalpers who knowingly break the rules put in place to make ticket buying fairer and more equitable.
“Competitive live entertainment markets should deliver value to artists and fans alike,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division in a statement. “We will continue to closely examine this market and look for opportunities where vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws can lead to increased competition that makes tickets more affordable for fans while offering fairer compensation for artists.”
Added FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, “Many Americans feel like they are being priced out of live entertainment by scalpers, bots, and other unfair and deceptive practices. Now their voices are being heard. President Trump has sent a clear message that bad actors who exploit fans and distort the marketplace will not be tolerated. The FTC is proud to help deliver on that promise and restore fair and competitive markets that benefit ordinary Americans.”
The inquiry comes as several ticketing bills work their way through Congress, most notably the TICKET ACT, which passed the House of Representatives on April 29 and also includes language calling for the enforcement of BOTS Act.
“Illegal bot use runs rampant in the ticketing industry because the FTC has only brought one enforcement action since the use of bots was banned in 2016,” read a statement from Stephen Parker, executive director of National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), shortly after the April 29 passage of the TICKET ACT in the House. He added, “We hope Congress does not miss the opportunity to ensure these laws are actually enforced in the future.”
LONDON — Following the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion dates in the U.K. and Ireland this coming summer, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows.
In August 2024, the Gallagher brothers announced their reformation for 19 stadium shows, their first since their split in 2009. The tour will begin on July 4 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, before heading to North America, Asia, Latin America and Australia in the ensuing months
The ticket sale process drew huge demand, but some fans complained of unclear pricing for tickets after long waits for the opportunity to purchase passes. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation highlights that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
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The update adds that demand meant that cheaper tickets sold out first, but that the release of more expensive tickets for similar places in the stadiums meant that “many fans waited in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
More than 900,000 tickets were sold for Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, but the pricing strategy proved controversial when standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees ($174) were re-labelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees ($458).
Following the furore, Oasis issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial dates. The CMA launched an investigation in September to examine whether Ticketmaster had used “unfair commercial practices” to pressure fans into paying higher prices for tickets.
Ticketmaster denied the use of the so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ method, with the company’s U.K. director Andrew Parsons telling MPs in February, “We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way.” He added that all prices are determined by artist teams and promoters SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, all of which have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s owners.
The report acknowledges that since the opening of the investigation, “Ticketmaster has made changes to some aspects of its ticket sales process,” but that the CMA “does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” The report does not directly comment on the alleged ‘dynamic pricing’ model, but cites other concerns around clearer sale practises.
The CMA says that, “Following a formal investigation, the CMA is now consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
In a statement to Billboard U.K., Ticketmaster U.K. said, “We strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
Downing Street responded to the report (via the BBC) by repeating a quote given by culture, media and sport secretary Lisa Nandy following the news that the government announced plans to cap the value of resold tickets for live events like music. “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports teams live is something that all of us enjoy… But for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.
“We’ve also seen cases where a lack of transparency has meant customers have been caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.”
On Friday (March 21), secondary ticketing marketplace StubHub filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC that the company hopes will value it at $16.5 billion.
A pioneer in online ticket re-selling, StubHub had “gross merchandise sales” (GMS) — or the total price customers paid for the transaction and fulfillment — of $8.7 billion in 2024, a 27% increase from 2023. For the year, it sold more than 40 million tickets from more than 1 million unique sellers across 200 countries and territories.
Revenue reached $1.77 billion in 2024, up 29.4% from 2023, while net loss was $2.8 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), which strips out non-cash expenses, was $298.7 million, down nearly 16% from $353.9 million in 2023. Long-term debt stands at $2.33 billion — nearly eight times last year’s adjusted EBITDA.
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Proceeds from the IPO will primarily go toward StubHub’s debt, with the remainder going toward general corporate purposes such as working capital, operating expenses and capital expenses. StubHub said it may use a portion of the proceeds for acquisitions or investments in products or technologies.
StubHub believes it is the leader in secondary ticketing, according to its S-1 filing on Friday. The company has also made a foray into primary ticketing, which generated more than $100 million in GMS in 2024. “We believe our value proposition, providing broadened distribution and superior pricing intelligence through an open distribution model, is well-positioned to attract more content rights holders to use our direct issuance solution,” the company stated in the filing.
StubHub does more business than most of its competitors. Vivid Seats had gross transaction value (GTV) of $3.9 billion in 2024 while Eventbrite, a primary ticketing platform, had GTV of $3.2 billion last year. Ticketmaster, which does not break out its primary and secondary ticketing, had GTV of $34.7 billion.
Launched in 2000 by Erik Baker, StubHub was acquired by eBay in 2007. Baker then launched a competing secondary ticketing platform in Europe, Viagogo, which purchased StubHub in 2020. Ahead of the IPO, Baker owns approximately 5% of Class A shares and 100% of Class B shares, leaving him with more than 90% of the voting rights. Other major holders of Class A shares include Madrone Partners (27.1%), WestCap Management (11.0%), Bessemer Venture Partners (9.6%), PointState Capital (5.6%) and Declaration Partners (5.3%).
A busy year in high-margin amphitheaters and arenas pushed concert promoter Live Nation to a record $2.15 billion in adjusted operating income (AOI) in 2024, up 14%, on record revenue of $23.16 billion, up 2%.
In the concerts division, full-year revenue rose 2% to $19.02 billion. Despite having 30% fewer stadium shows in 2024, the total number of fans grew to a record 151 million from more than 50,000 Live Nation events. A heavy slate of concerts at arenas and amphitheaters, where Live Nation can offer VIP experiences and capture more revenue from food and beverage sales, helped AOI climb 65% to $529.7 million and AOI margin — AOI as a percentage of revenue — reach a record 2.8%.
Ticketing revenue for the full year increased 1% to $2.99 billion while AOI dropped 1% to $1.12 billion. Ticketmaster had 23 million net new enterprise tickets that were signed in 2024, with two-thirds coming from international markets.
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Sponsorships and advertising revenue grew 9% to $1.2 billion and AOI rose 13% to $763.8 million. Led by festivals in Latin America and Europe, international markets were up double digits. The number of new clients increased 20%.
Live Nation is expecting 2025 will top its record-setting 2024. Through mid-February, stadium shows are up 60% from the prior-year period and 65 million tickets have been sold for Live Nation concerts, a double-digit annual increase. Ticketmaster’s transacted ticketing revenue for 2025 shows is up 3% to 106 million tickets, due mainly to an increase in concert demand.
The current year “is shaping up to be even bigger thanks to a deep global concert pipeline, with more stadium shows on the books than ever before,” CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement. Currently, Live Nation’s stadium tours for 2025 include Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour, Morgan Wallen’s I’m The Problem Tour, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s Grand National Tour, and Post Malone and Jelly Roll’s Big Ass Stadium Tour.
Consolidation fourth-quarter revenue dropped 2% to $5.68 billion as concerts revenue dipped 6% to $4.58 billion and ticketing and sponsorships and advertising grew 14% and 10%, respectively. Fourth-quarter AOI fared better, however, rising 35% to $157.3 million despite concerts AOI falling 16%.
Live Nation is ending its “concerts all summer long” program at the company’s amphitheaters and plans to replace the multi-show offering with something different, company officials tell Billboard. On Tuesday (Feb. 18), the Live Nation Lawnie Instagram page announced the end of the six-year-old program, in which music fans paid a flat fee for a […]
A ticketing reform law meant to clean up the concert industry has been revived in the U.S. Senate after nearly becoming law at the end of last year.
Originally introduced by representative Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Florida), the Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act (TICKET Act) would introduce a number of reforms to the ticket-buying process. That includes rules to increase pricing transparency, which would require sports teams and concert promoters to clearly and prominently display the full price of a concert ticket, with fees and taxes added, so that the price they first see is the price they pay at checkout.
The TICKET Act died with the end of the 2023-2024 congressional term but has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate by senators Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Ed Markey (D- Massachusetts). It heads to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday (Feb. 5) for a hearing.
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The TICKET Act would also mandate refunds for canceled events, ban speculative ticket sales and crack down on the unauthorized use of venues, teams and artists on resell sites designed to confuse fans. Born out of the bungled Taylor Swift ticket sale for her record-breaking Eras Tour — which was crashed by scalpers and billions of bots trying to buy up tickets to flip for profit — the TICKET Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in December 2023 and passed the House in June of last year in a 344 to 24 vote. The bill was even included in the first iteration of the end-of-year Continuing Resolution spending bill signed by former president Joe Biden at the end of last year before eventually being pulled from it.
Whether or not the TICKET Act ends up on President Donald Trump’s desk, one of its key tenets — all-in pricing — was solidified in December by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it announced a rule change tackling “junk fees.” The so-called Junk Fees Rule — which also applies to hotel rooms and airline fees — requires total price disclosure including fees for any event tickets listed for sale on the internet.
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” former FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said on Dec. 17, hours after FTC commissioners announced the rule change.
The TICKET Act isn’t the only bill designed to create a more hospitable ticketing marketplace for consumers — though some have claimed that violators of existing laws aren’t being held to account. In September, the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) sent Khan a letter urging her to begin enforcing the 2016 BOTS Act, which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.” The Sept. 9 letter claimed NITO members had attended a ticket resale conference and “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act.”
In July, songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle wrote that the BOTS Act has only been enforced one time since its 2017 passage. He went on to argue that the government needs to focus on enforcing its existing laws before moving on to a new regime of legislation that will ultimately go “under-enforced.”
LONDON — The British government has launched a public consultation into the ticketing industry, including the heavily criticized use of dynamic pricing for popular tours, as part of wider efforts to stop music fans from “being fleeced” by “greedy ticket touts.”
The 12-week consultation was announced by the Department for Business and Trade and Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday (Jan. 10). It sets out a range of measures to transform the U.K.’s secondary ticket market, including a proposed cap on the price of ticket resales and new legal regulations for ticket platforms around transparency and the accuracy of information they provide to fans.
“From sports tournaments to Taylor Swift, all too often big events have been dogged by consumers being taken advantage of by ticket touts,” said business secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a statement. “These unfair practices look to fleece people of their hard-earned income, which isn’t fair on fans, venues and artists.”
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Government ministers are additionally reviewing pricing practices across the entire live events business, including the use of dynamic pricing by primary vendors whereby prices surge based on demand.
The use of dynamic pricing for concert tickets came to the fore in the U.K. in September when it was used on the U.K. and Ireland legs of Oasis’ Live ‘25 reunion tour, prompting hundreds of complaints from fans after tickets unexpectedly soared from around £150.00 ($200) for standard admission to £355.00 ($470) without prior warning.
The angry consumer backlash was accompanied by fierce condemnation from British politicians, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, who called the “vastly inflated” prices “depressing to see.”
Soon after, the U.K. competition regulator launched an investigation into Ticketmaster examining whether the Live Nation-owned company broke consumer protection laws and engaged in “unfair commercial practices” by failing to notify ticket buyers in advance about the price rises. Ticketmaster has consistently stated that ticket prices are set by the artist team and event organisers, not itself.
Starmer had previously vowed to cap resale prices on secondary ticketing platforms, such as Viagogo and StubHub, in the run up to July’s election win.
According to the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), around 1.9 million tickets were sold through secondary platforms to British consumers in 2019, accounting for between 5% and 6% of all tickets sold that year. Tickets sold on secondary sites are typically priced more than 50% higher than their face value, reports CMA, which estimated the U.K. secondary ticketing market to have been worth around £350 million ($430 million) a year pre-pandemic.
“For too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices,” said Nandy announcing the three-month-long consultation, which closes April 4.
The government said it was seeking views from live industry stakeholders and music fans on a number of proposed measures designed to make ticket resales fairer and more transparent.
They include capping the price of resale tickets at up to 30% above face value and banning resellers from listing more tickets than they can legally buy on the primary market. These measures would disincentivise industrial scale touting, said the government.
Ministers are also proposing to pass tougher regulations for ticket resale companies and issue tougher fines for offenders. At present, the maximum fine that can be issued by Trading Standards against companies that breach ticketing sale rules is £5,000 ($6,100). The consultation will investigate whether this cap should be increased.
The primary ticketing market is also under scrutiny with ministers calling for evidence on whether fans are protected from “unfair practices,” including the use of new technologies and dynamic pricing.
Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer protection organization Which?, said the government must use the consultation “to regulate the industry properly, ensure ticket resales don’t exploit fans and decide when the use of dynamic pricing is unfair and shouldn’t be allowed.”
As in other countries, the practice of dynamic pricing is commonly used in the U.K. by travel companies, taxis and hotels, but it has only been fleetingly used in the British touring market with Oasis’ comeback tour – which is being jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts – marking its most high-profile roll out for live music concerts in the United Kingdom and Ireland so far.
The British government’s probe of the ticketing business is the latest attempt by authorities to tackle the persistent issue of large-scale ticketing touting in the U.K.
In 2021, watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded its long-running investigation into secondary ticketing platforms by making a series of recommendations to government on how to fix the sector. Those recommendations were rejected by the then Conservative government, but now form the basis of the Labour Party’s proposals.
There has also been a number of investigations by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) into secondary sites, with a particular focus on Viagogo.
When reached for comment, a Viagogo spokesperson insisted the company will “continue to constructively engage with the Government and look forward to responding in full to the consultation and call for evidence on improving consumer protections in the ticketing market.”
Responding to the public consultation, a spokesperson for Ticketmaster U.K. said the company was “committed to making ticketing simple and transparent” and supported plans to introduce an industry-wide resale price cap.
“We also urge the government to crack down on bots and ban speculative ticket sales,” said the U.K. arm of Ticketmaster, which has capped resale prices to face value on its platform since 2018. StubHub did not respond to a request to comment.
Adam Webb from U.K. campaign group FanFair Alliance called the government’s proposed measures “potentially game-changing” and highlighted the success of other countries, including Ireland, in passing legislation that has effectively banned ticket scalping. “The U.K. simply needs to follow their example,” said Webb.
Two independent music festivals that had hoped to generate approximately $70,000 in revenue by quietly scalping their VIP tickets through the since-shuttered ticketing company Lyte now each face more than $300,000 in losses, court records show.
The festivals are represented in two lawsuits — one filed by organizers of Chicago’s North Coast Music Festival in New York court and the other, Ohio’s Lost Lands Festival in Los Angeles court. The suits provide the first insights into the collapse of Lyte, which suddenly ceased operating earlier this month.
The sudden closure of the company, without any warning to its hundreds of clients, revealed that Lyte CEO Ant Taylor, a Princeton graduate and former media executive, had quietly shifted the business into large-scale ticket scalping in recent years. Lyte was marketed to the public as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange, but documents from recent lawsuits show that Lyte’s main source of revenue came from working directly with promoters to scalp hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of VIP tickets for their events to Lyte, which would then resell those tickets at large markups, splitting the upside between the promoter and itself.
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According to one court document, of the 3,064 tickets listed on Lyte for the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago (Aug. 30-Sept. 1) only 89 tickets came from fan listings. Lyte would use those fan listings to drive traffic to an additional 2,975 tickets posted directly on Lyte by the event’s promoters, with a collective face value of approximately $287,750.
Lyte was able to scalp those tickets on its own marketplace and generate $426,912 in revenue — a price lift of nearly 48%, or approximately $139,162 total — which it would then split 50-50 with the promoters. North Coast Music Festival’s cut of the action was to be $69,581, which represents a 24% increase in revenue over their original allocation.
But none of the above mentioned revenue was paid to the dance-centric NCMF festival and the festival was also never paid back for the $287,750 in revenue from tickets it listed on Lyte.
The team behind Lost Lands Music Festival, which takes place each September in Legend Valley, Ohio says its owed $330,000 for the tickets it sold on Lyte, plus the upside it generated from the markups. According to the Lost Land’s lawsuit (filed under its corporate name of APEX Management), Lyte paid APEX a $100,000 advanced fee for using the ticketing platform, which APEX repaid by early September.
Much of Lost Land’s lawsuit is heavily redacted, although the suit does provide some clues about the timeline surrounding Lyte’s collapse.
According to a court filing, APEX’s consultant for Lost Lands, concert giant AEG Presents, had learned that Taylor had resigned as Lyte’s CEO on Sept. 12, and “that Lyte had ceased virtually all of its business operations and laid off virtually all of its employees,” attorney Eric Levinrad writes in a recent court filing.
The lawsuits states that two days later, officials with AEG made contact with Lyte’s CFO Lisa Bashi and learned “she could not commit to the timing of any payment or even that there would be a payment,” for money owed to Lost Lands. “Ms. Bashi further stated that this was an unfortunate scenario, and that defendant was hiring an outside company to help consult on how to wind down operations (Id.), making it clear that Defendant had become insolvent.”
On Sept. 18, an LA Superior Court judge overseeing the Lost Lands case approved the festival organizers’ request for a writ of attachment, allowing organizers to seize Lyte’s property before a judgment is entered, ensuring that Lyte’s assets are available to pay Lost Lands the $330,000 it is owed.
The failed payments come with significant risk for festivals, managing director of APEX Event Management Brett Abel said in a declaration filed in LA court, writing, “APEX will have to urgently find alternative sources of revenue to pay the vendors and artists who will be working at the festival, to make up for its planned share of the secondary market ticket sales,” increasing the risk that APEX would “suffer a loss from the festival rather than break even or to make some profit.”
The Federal Trade Commission is being urged to investigate technology companies that create tools for ticket scalpers that violate existing laws and drive up the price of concert tickets.
The warning and call to action comes by way of a letter signed by National Independent Talent Organizations president Jack Randall and executive director Nathaniel Marro, taking aim at the World Ticket Summit. Held in Nashville earlier this month, the annual conference is organized by the National Association of Ticket Brokers, the country’s largest member organization for professional ticket resellers and individuals who list and resell tickets on sites like StubHub and SeatGeek.
At this year’s summit, members of NITO – which represent independent talent agencies and management companies including Arrival Artists, High Road Touring, Paladin Artists, Q Prime, Red Light Management and TKO – “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act,” a Sept. 9 letter to Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan reads.
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That technology includes web browser extensions that set up multiple tabs masking a user’s IP address, proxy services that allow users to be logged in to multiple ticketing accounts from one location and virtual credit card services that bypass geographical restrictions on ticket sales, which are often put in place by event organizers to ensure fair access for local fans.
According to the letter, the use of this type of technology to procure concert tickets is a violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016 which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.”
Put more simply, most ticketing companies place a cap on how many tickets a fan can buy for a concert and the use of automated bots, proxy servers, VPNs and phantom credit cards to exceed purchase limits is a violation of the BOTS Act.
“The presence of these vendors at a conference specifically for ticket brokers strongly suggests that a substantial portion of attendees either currently use these services or are likely to do so in the near future,” the letter reads. “This widespread availability and apparent demand for tools that can circumvent ticket purchasing limits indicates that many, if not most, scalpers are operating in violation of the federal BOTS Act.”
The NATB’s executive director Gary Adler issued a lengthy statement in response to NITO’s letter, writing “The vast majority of technology exhibitors at the conference were inventory management systems that help ticket companies organize their tickets, offer them for resale, and help with pricing.”
“There are many friction points in ticketing,” Adler continued “and high-tech ways that players in the system try to monopolize every dollar spent on ticketing and to prevent the resale of tickets. For more than half of events there are lower cost options on the secondary market and some in the primary market don’t like seeing their previously sold tickets being offered for resale at deep discounts. Artists, venues, and primary ticketers abuse technology every day to create fake scarcity and deceive consumers into paying higher prices when really, they are secretly holding back tickets to slowly drip more on sale over time to cheat and fool the fan. This is most likely an illegal deceptive marketing and advertising practice, driven by artists, venues, and primary ticketing companies, that the FTC should immediately investigate.”
Adler notes that the NATB “advocated for the passage of the BOTS Act in 2016 as we fully support the banning of bots. There is no place in the system for illegal bot use. We stand for doing resale the right way and passing strong laws to protect fans and competition across the ticketing industry. If any exhibitors were offering technology that violates the BOTS Act, we want to know as they will not be welcomed back.”
Since its passage in 2017, the BOTs Act has only been enforced one time, in 2021, when three New York-based ticket brokers were charged with violating the law. The government’s enforcement of the BOTS Act has been an “abysmal failure” writes songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle, noting that StubHub’s scheduled IPO this fall was a tell-tale sign that the BOTS Act was “under-enforced.”
“Let’s face it – if there were no bots and no boiler room operations, StubHub probably wouldn’t have much of a business,” Castle wrote. Lawmakers including Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation like the Mitigating Automated Internet Networks for (MAIN) Event Ticketing Act of 2023 which would force ticketing companies to be more proactive about reporting BOT usage, but those efforts have largely stalled in Congress.
NITO’s letter includes eight recommendations for rights holders and the FTC, calling for the regulator to subpoena the customer lists of “companies offering services that fall into the categories likely to facilitate BOTS Act violations” as well as increased enforcement actions, prioritizing “investigations into large-scale ticket reselling operations, focusing on those using multiple technologies to circumvent purchasing limits.”
By implementing these recommendations, the letter explains, “rights holders and the FTC can take significant steps towards curbing BOTS Act violations and ensuring fairer access to event tickets for consumers.”