{"id":9368,"date":"2026-01-07T20:36:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ticketmaster-says-ftc-lawsuit-over-concert-prices-must-be-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:27:49","slug":"ticketmaster-says-ftc-lawsuit-over-concert-prices-must-be-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ticketmaster-says-ftc-lawsuit-over-concert-prices-must-be-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticketmaster Says FTC Lawsuit Over Concert Prices Must Be Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tLive Nation and Ticketmaster want a judge to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s lawsuit claiming the companies have enabled scalpers to jack up concert prices, calling it an \u201cunprecedented\u201d use of federal ticketing laws.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe FTC sued the live giants last year, claiming they had engaged in years of \u201cunfair and deceptive practices\u201d that hurt consumers, including allowing brokers to buy up tickets and resell them at sky-high prices. The case came as spiking prices have rankled fans during a post-pandemic concert boom.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a motion filed Tuesday in federal court, Live Nation and Ticketmaster called the FTC\u2019s case an \u201cegregious instance of agency overreach\u201d that should be tossed out of court immediately. In doing so, they accused the feds of misusing the BOTS Act, a 2016 law aimed at quashing scalping, in ways unintended by the lawmakers who wrote it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis statute is designed to help ticket issuers like Ticketmaster combat ticket harvesting and scalping, ensuring that tickets are accessible to genuine fans,\u201d the company\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cPlaintiffs now ask this court to take the unprecedented step of applying this law against a ticket issuer for its operation of a resale platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokeswoman for the FTC declined to comment on Live Nation\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Live Nation and Ticketmaster already facing a blockbuster monopoly lawsuit from the Justice Department, the FTC filed its own separate case in September \u2014 accusing the companies of costing consumers billions in inflated ticket prices. The agency claimed they were \u201ctacitly coordinating\u201d with ticket brokers by allowing them to \u201charvest\u201d millions worth of tickets despite public rules against it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAmerican live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,\u201d FTC chairman Andrew N. Ferguson<\/strong> wrote at the time. \u201cIt should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician\u2019s show.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe case was aimed at a common gripe from music fans, who have seen ticket prices skyrocket as live music has boomed in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered venues. Though Taylor Swift\u2019s Eras Tour was the poster child for infamously expensive resale tickets \u2014 fans routinely paid five-figure sums for some tickets \u2014 prices have risen across the board. According to Billboard Boxscore, the average ticket price for a stadium show in North America has risen from $101.77 in 2016 to $150.94 in 2024, for example.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in their motion on Tuesday, attorneys for Live Nation and Ticketmaster say the BOTS Act was simply not intended to target ticket-selling platforms. The statute \u2014 formally the Better Online Ticket Sales Act \u2014 was aimed at cracking down on scalpers themselves, the companies\u2019 lawyers write, and the FTC \u201ccannot rewrite that statute through this litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiffs\u2019 theory boils down to the idea that Ticketmaster is liable under the BOTS Act merely for knowing that some brokers used multiple accounts or that some accounts possessed more tickets than the ticket limit permitted,\u201d Live Nation\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cBut that theory does not amount to a violation of the statute Congress enacted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe companies also argue that the FTC\u2019s other allegations \u2014 including that Live Nation and Ticketmaster employed \u201cbait-and-switch pricing\u201d by tacking deceptive fees onto low advertised prices \u2014 were \u201cequally deficient\u201d because they now employ all-in pricing that discloses fees.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite its strong denial of any legal wrongdoing, Live Nation has announced major policy changes in the wake of the FTC\u2019s lawsuit. In an October letter to Congress, the company told lawmakers that it plans to bar brokers from operating multiple accounts on its platform, shutter a long-criticized uploading application, and start requiring brokers to hand over Social Security numbers to sell tickets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Live Nation and Ticketmaster want a judge to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s lawsuit claiming the companies have enabled scalpers to jack up concert prices, calling it an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1540,2059,352,303,648,1345],"class_list":["post-9368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-concert","tag-dismissed","tag-ftc","tag-lawsuit","tag-prices","tag-ticketmaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9385,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9368\/revisions\/9385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}