Attorney General Raoul Files Lawsuit Against Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster Over Deceptive Business Practices

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, in partnership with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, filed a lawsuit today against Live Nation Entertainment Inc. (Live Nation), and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ticketmaster LLC (Ticketmaster), over the company’s unlawful coordination with ticket brokers that drives up prices for tickets in resale markets. The lawsuit also alleges that Ticketmaster deceptively displays lower ticket prices on its website, only to charge customers substantially more at checkout.

“Ticketmaster’s deceptive business tactics have left fans paying steep hidden fees and pushed them into expensive, secondary ticket markets,” said Raoul. “While Ticketmaster claims to limit bulk purchases by brokers, it allows its own rules on purchase limits to be broken. The company then profits when those tickets sell for higher prices — and Ticketmaster can collect another round of fees — in its own resale marketplace.”

Ticket limits and prices fans encounter on Ticketmaster’s website are typically set by the artists. However, the complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster privately acknowledge their business benefits when brokers prevent ordinary Americans from purchasing tickets to live entertainment events at the prices set by artists.

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Raoul and the FTC allege that the companies have tacitly worked with brokers, allowing them to get around ticket limits and unlawfully purchase millions of dollars’ worth of tickets to extract more profit in the secondary market. According to the lawsuit, even when consumers were able to initially purchase tickets from Ticketmaster, they encountered mandatory fees not included in the list price, which increased the cost by up to 30%.

Fans have few alternatives for buying tickets. Live Nation controls roughly 80% or more of major concert venues’ primary ticketing for concerts and a growing share of ticket resales in the secondary market. From 2019 to 2024, consumers spent more than $82.6 billion purchasing tickets from Ticketmaster.

In May 2024, Attorney General Raoul joined the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a bipartisan coalition of states in filing a civil antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging that the company has illegally monopolized the live entertainment industry.

Raoul and the FTC are joined in filing today’s lawsuit by the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

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