Photography by: Brandon Johnson (@bjohnsonxar)
Audio By Carbonatix
Colorado has joined another federal lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
The Federal Trade Commission sued the companies on September 18, with Colorado joining the lawsuit alongside Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. The FTC alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged in 2009, are intentionally misleading consumers about ticket prices.
“Fans are sick and tired of having a fast one pulled on them every time they want to buy concert tickets,” says Attorney General Phil Weiser. “Ticketmaster has systematically made it harder for consumers to see the artists they love, deceived fans about pricing, let brokers scoop up tickets in bulk, and charged excessive fees multiple times on secondary markets. We are taking action to hold Ticketmaster accountable and ensure fairer access to live entertainment.”
Last year, Colorado joined a suit launched by the Department of Justice along with 28 other states and Washington, D.C. Prompted by the insanity surrounding ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, when prices sometimes rose to the level of college tuition, the DOJ argued that Live Nation Entertainment has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing the primary ticketing market, locking venues into unlawfully exclusive long-term agreements and only allowing those who pay for its promotion and ticketing services to perform at its venues. At the time, the lawsuit noted that Ticketmaster is eight times larger than its biggest competitor, AXS, while Live Nation’s primary rival, Anschutz Entertainment Group, is less than half the size.
The FTC’s lawsuit, meanwhile, focuses on deceptive ticket pricing and Ticketmaster’s claim that it has a strict policy on the number of tickets a purchaser can buy. The FTC claims that Ticketmaster coordinates with brokers who eschew such limits by purchasing up to millions of dollars’ worth of tickets and scalping them for above face value; Ticketmaster then still collects fees from those secondary sales. The agency notes that Ticketmaster controls more than 80 percent of U.S. concert venues’ ticketing, and that between 2019 and 2024, consumers spent more than $82.6 billion purchasing tickets from the site.
“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” says FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson 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.”
The FTC’s complaint, which was filed in the Central District of California, is asking for civil penalties, monetary relief and restitution for alleged violations of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, the FTC Act and various state consumer protection statutes.
“Consumers deserve a fair ticket-buying experience,” says Weiser. “We will not allow corporations to exploit fans and disregard the law simply to boost profits.”
Live Nation manages three venues in Denver: the Marquis Theater, Summit and the Fillmore Auditorium. Westword has reached out to Live Nation for comment.
