Earlier today, the Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster for engaging in illegal ticket resale practices that have cost consumers billions in inflated prices and fees.

The lawsuit – which is cosigned by a bipartisan group of seven attorneys general from Virginia, Utah, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado – includes allegations that Live Nation and Ticketmaster deceived artists and consumers about prices and ticket limits, coordinated with brokers to acquire tickets through unlawful means, and profited hundreds of millions of dollars by reselling those tickets at steep markups.

Excerpts of Bloomberg’s reporting:

Bloomberg: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Sued by FTC Over Ticket Resales
By Leah Nylen | September 18, 2025

The US Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and its Ticketmaster subsidiary for failing to stem the use of automated ticketing bots and large-scale resale operations.

The consumer protection agency said the nation’s largest ticketing platform failed to enforce its own purchase limits, which allowed resellers to buy up large numbers of passes for popular events, according to a lawsuit filed in California federal court Thursday. The agency said that Ticketmaster systematically ignored ticket brokers that bypassed its limits since it earns money from resales.

“The company routinely chooses to turn a blind eye to broker circumvention of ticket limits,” the FTC said in its complaint. Ticketmaster’s “unlawful conduct and tacit coordination with brokers injures fans, who have paid far more than the advertised ticket price for both box office and resale tickets, and who are forced to pay inflated resale prices for high-demand tickets.”

[…]

The agency said Ticketmaster’s actions violated both the FTC Act, which bars deceptive conduct, as well as the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, or BOTS Act, which was passed in 2016 to prevent large-scale ticket scalping by banning the use of bots, or automated methods of circumventing per-person ticket limits.

Read the full piece from Bloomberg here.

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Empower Fans, Not Monopolies is a coalition of small business, consumer rights, and equity groups working to urge the California legislature to increase competition in live event ticketing while also enhancing the rights of fans. Learn more at empowerfansca.com.