The Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, on Thursday, alleging that the company broke the law by allowing brokers to purchase millions of dollars of tickets and reselling them at higher rates.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, lists Colorado, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia as plaintiffs.
The FTC accused Ticketmaster of deceptive practices. That included a “bait and switch” tactic, in which the company advertised lower prices but boosted the cost by 30% or more during checkout due to additional fees.
According to the complaint, Ticketmaster has “reaped massive profits by misrepresenting the total price of tickets to consumers, who pay billions of dollars each year in mandatory fees not reflected in the list price.”
The lawsuit also accused the defendants of falsely claiming that it set limits on the number of tickets people could buy. According to the complaint, brokers bought thousands of tickets at face value and then resold them for higher prices on Ticketmaster.
That allowed the company to reap additional fees, the complaint stated. Ticketmaster and Live Nation earned $986 million in resale fees from 2019 to 2024, court documents state.
“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” FTC chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement. “It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show.”
Ticketmaster and Live Nation did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to The New York Times.