FTC and Four States Ask for a Jury in Ticketmaster Case
The Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Nebraska want a jury to hear their lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, according to Music Business Worldwide. The jury-trial demand was filed in federal court in Los Angeles on October 27.
The case centres on ticket resale. The lawsuit alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster broke the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, a US law aimed at automated ticket buying. The complaint says tickets were obtained by getting around Ticketmaster's limits on how many tickets one buyer can purchase, and then resold. Live Nation is the parent company of Ticketmaster LLC.
The two sides disagree on when the case should be heard. The plaintiffs have proposed a jury trial starting April 24, 2028. Live Nation and Ticketmaster have proposed a bench trial, meaning a judge alone would decide the case, starting October 2, 2028. The companies filed their formal written response to the complaint, known as an answer, on October 13.
The money at stake, as the complaint describes it, is large. It alleges that Ticketmaster collected $3.7 billion in fees on resale tickets from 2019 through 2024. The FTC has also said that Ticketmaster hid mandatory fees that could reach 44% of a ticket's price, a claim it made when it first sued in September 2025. For anyone buying a ticket, those fees are the part of the case that shows up at checkout.
The complaint also quotes an internal email. It says a senior Ticketmaster executive wrote that the companies "turn a blind eye as a matter of policy" toward brokers who break ticket limits. The filing presents the email as evidence, and the companies have not accepted that characterisation.
The FTC and seven states first sued in September 2025. Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have since joined the lawsuit, but they were not named in the jury demand.
The case is separate from a New York trial earlier this year. In April 2026, a New York jury found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary illegally monopolised US live event ticketing markets. The verdict followed a seven-week trial brought by Attorney General Jeff Jackson of North Carolina and 33 other attorneys general. At that trial, the US Justice Department argued that Live Nation holds monopolies in ticketing and venues.
Ticket buyers will see the outcome of these cases through prices and fees, but no trial date in the resale case has been set. The judge will have to choose between the two proposed schedules, one with a jury in 2028 and one without.
