Live Nation calls FTC ticket lawsuit misguided in court answer

Live Nation and Ticketmaster have formally denied the US competition case against them, calling the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit “misguided” in a court answer filed on 13 October.

The answer was lodged in federal court in Los Angeles. It responds to claims brought by the FTC and seven states about how tickets are sold and resold.

At the centre of the response is a dispute over the BOTS Act, a 2016 US law aimed at ticket scalpers who use automated software to get around purchase limits. Live Nation and Ticketmaster argue the agency is trying to “flip the Act on its head” by using that law against the ticketing platform itself, according to Music Business Worldwide.

The FTC and the states of Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia sued the companies in September 2025. The complaint alleges that Ticketmaster knowingly allowed brokers to use hundreds or thousands of accounts to buy more tickets than the limits set by artists allowed.

Those tickets were then resold on Ticketmaster’s own resale marketplace, the FTC alleges. The agency describes the fee structure as a “triple dip”: a charge to the broker at the first purchase, a charge to the broker at resale, and a charge to the fan who bought the resold ticket.

The numbers are large. The FTC alleges consumers paid more than USD $16.4 billion in mandatory fees on Ticketmaster purchases between 2019 and 2024. It puts fees on resale tickets in that period at USD $3.7 billion.

The complaint also alleges misleading pricing, saying Ticketmaster advertised prices that excluded mandatory fees until checkout. That practice is often called drip pricing, where the full cost only appears late in the buying process. The FTC further alleges the company misrepresented how strictly it enforced ticket limits.

As part of its case, the FTC cites an internal email in which a senior Ticketmaster executive allegedly said the companies “turn a blind eye as a matter of policy” to brokers exceeding ticket limits. Live Nation and Ticketmaster deny wrongdoing. In their answer, they denied every factual allegation they did not specifically admit.

The case has already survived one attempt to end it. Live Nation and Ticketmaster asked the court on 6 January to throw it out, calling it “an egregious instance of agency overreach.” U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong rejected that request on 28 September, writing that “The BOTS Act does not preclude platforms from facing liability, and the Court will not read it as doing so.”

Live Nation, the parent organisation of Ticketmaster, says the lawsuit distracts from practical fixes. On its corporate Facts page, it names letting artists cap resale prices as a step that would lower prices and protect fans. The companies have also said the FTC case “sets back the fight against scalpers.”

For fans, this means the fight is now about rules rather than refunds. The FTC is seeking civil penalties, other monetary relief and a court order barring the alleged practices, as described in its September 2025 statement.

There is wider context. In August 2025, the FTC took separate action against ticket resellers accused of bypassing ticket-limit protections to buy hundreds of thousands of tickets for resale. Ticketmaster controls about 80% of primary ticketing for major venues, according to Reuters. The Los Angeles case will decide whether its behaviour around limits, fees and resale breaks the law.