U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues Live Nation and Ticketmaster ⇥ ftc.gov

In 2018, the Toronto Star and CBC News jointly published an investigation into Ticketmaster’s sales practices:

Data journalists monitored Ticketmaster’s website for seven months leading up to this weekend’s show at Scotiabank Arena, closely tracking seats and prices to find out exactly how the box-office system works.

Here are the key findings:

  • Ticketmaster doesn’t list every seat when a sale begins.

  • Hikes prices mid-sale.

  • Collects fees twice on tickets scalped on its site.

Dave Seglins, Rachel Houlihan, Laura Clementson, CBC News:

Posing as scalpers and equipped with hidden cameras, the journalists were pitched on Ticketmaster’s professional reseller program.

[…]

TradeDesk allows scalpers to upload large quantities of tickets purchased from Ticketmaster’s site and quickly list them again for resale. With the click of a button, scalpers can hike or drop prices on reams of tickets on Ticketmaster’s site based on their assessment of fan demand.

Ticketmaster, of course, disputed these journalists’ findings. But the very existence of TradeDesk — owned by Ticketmaster — seems to be in direct opposition to Ticketmaster’s obligations to purchasers. One part of the company is ostensibly in the business of making sure legitimate buyers acquire no more than their fair share of tickets to a popular show, while another part facilitates easy reselling at massive scale. The TradeDesk platform is not something accessible by just anyone; you cannot create an account on demand. Someone from Ticketmaster has to set up your TradeDesk account for you.

These stories have now become a key piece of evidence in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster:

The FTC alleges that in public, Ticketmaster maintains that its business model is at odds with brokers that routinely exceed ticket limits. But in private, Ticketmaster acknowledged that its business model and bottom line benefit from brokers preventing ordinary Americans from purchasing tickets to the shows they want to see at the prices artists set.

The complaint’s description (PDF) of the relationship between Ticketmaster and TradeDesk, beginning at paragraph 84 and continuing through paragraph 101, is damning. If true, Ticketmaster must be aware of the scalper economy it is effectively facilitating through TradeDesk.