CHICAGO, Ill. (WCIA) — The Illinois Attorney General is part of a coalition suing Ticketmaster, accusing the company of collaborating unlawfully with ticket brokers and misleadingly overcharging customers beyond the advertised prices.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul has joined forces with a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to initiate the lawsuit. Ticketmaster and its parent firm, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., are named as defendants.
The lawsuit claims Live Nation and Ticketmaster are working with ticket brokers to inflate ticket prices on the resale market. It also accuses Ticketmaster of showing a deceptively low initial price on its website, with the actual total cost only revealed during checkout, according to Raoul.
Raoul stated, “Ticketmaster’s misleading business practices result in fans facing significant hidden fees and drive them towards pricier, secondary ticket markets. Despite Ticketmaster’s claims to restrict bulk purchases by brokers, it knowingly allows violations of its purchase limits. The company then benefits financially when tickets are resold at higher prices, collecting additional fees in its own resale platform.”
According to Raoul, artists typically determine ticket limits and prices. However, in a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Raoul and his co-plaintiffs argue that Live Nation and Ticketmaster privately concede that they gain financially when brokers hinder fans from purchasing tickets at artist-set prices.
Their solution: ticket brokers.
The plaintiffs assert that Live Nation and Ticketmaster implicitly cooperate to circumvent ticket limits, allowing brokers to acquire millions in tickets for greater profits. Even when customers do purchase directly from Ticketmaster initially, Raoul noted they encounter obligatory fees that can escalate costs by as much as 30%.
Customers, meanwhile, have few alternatives. Raoul said Live Nation controls roughly 80% or more of major concert venues’ primary ticketing, with a growing share of ticket resales. Customers spent more than $82 billion on tickets through Ticketmaster between 2019 and 2024.
A separate lawsuit filed last year by Raoul and the U.S. Department of Justice accused Ticketmaster of monopolizing the live entertainment industry.
In the latest lawsuit, Raoul and the FTC were joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia as plaintiffs.
