Tag Archives: bots

The United States Justice Department Officially Files an Antitrust Suit Against Live Nation, The Owner of Ticketmaster, Live Nation Responds

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(PRNewsfoto/Live Nation Entertainment)

 

Live Nation /Ticketmaster have come under fire in recent years for what many concertgoers and bands decry as price fixing and artificially inflating ticket pricing, and scalping/reselling. The brand has been under investigation by the US Government after a major public outrage by fans after ticket fiascos such as Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and recently Blink-182. The United States Department of Justice and several states have officially filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Inc, citing alleged antitrust violations at least in part due to the market dominance of the company’s Ticketmaster unit.

 “We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”

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The United States Justice Department is Expected to File an Antitrust Suit Against Live Nation, The Owner of Ticketmaster

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(PRNewsfoto/Live Nation Entertainment)

 

Live Nation /Ticketmaster have come under fire in recent years for what many concertgoers and bands decry as price fixing and artificially inflating ticket pricing, and scalping/reselling. The brand has been under investigation by the US Government after a major public outrage by fans after ticket fiascos such as Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and recently Blink-182. Now according to published reports by CNN and The Washington Post The United States Justice Department and several states are expected to file a lawsuit as soon as Thursday against Live Nation Inc, citing alleged antitrust violations at least in part due to the market dominance of the company’s Ticketmaster unit, a person briefed on the planned legal action said. If this lawsuit is successful, if would send shockwaves through the music induistry, the concert industry, down to booking agents, bands and fans. Live Nation has been the past recipient of ire specifically from metalheads after proof of collusion with bands to create a resale market with major bands, such as Metallica (Editor’s Note: basically every huge touring band has a rep that manages their Live Nation relationship), causing a major embarrassment for the band. In their rebuttal to the current case (but before the filing) being made against them (one of which is that they hold an unfair monopoly on the entire concert industry) they claim they are not unfair and entrants into the field for ticket sales have caused them to defend their brand. They have tried several campaigns to offset this lawsuit from coming down, including their support of the “Fair Ticketing Act,” launching the option for “all-in pricing,” and the On The Road program with Willie Nelson to help venues and stop the practice of merch cuts. Continue reading →


Live Nation Answers The Federal Investigation Into Ticket Pricing and Practices with Support of a “Fair Ticketing Act” 

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(PRNewsfoto/Live Nation Entertainment)

 

Live Nation /Ticketmaster have come under fire in recent years for what many concertgoers and bands decry as price fixing and artificially inflating ticket pricing, and scalping/reselling. The brand has been under investigation by the US Government after a major public outrage by fans after ticket fiascos such as Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and recently Blink-182. Live Nation has been the past recipient of ire from metalheads after proof of collusion with bands to create a resale market with major bands, such as Metallica, causing a major embarrassment for the band. In their rebuttal to the case being made against them (one of which is that they hold an unfair monopoly on the entire concert industry) they claim they are not unfair and entrants into the field for ticket sales have caused them to defend their brand. Check out Live Nation’s response to the investigation below. Continue reading →


Metallica Called Out For Their Past Dealings with Ticketmaster on “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” 

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John Oliver’s program Last Week Tonight With John Oliver took on Ticketmaster/Live Nation on the show this week, calling out corrupt practices, shady fees, price gouging and the creation and manipulation of the secondary market for tickets. In addition to resellers such as Stubhub and Seatgeek and others, Olvier pointed out the common practice where bands do not release swaths of tickets to each to the public, but hold them back to charge huge sums as resale tickets that were never publicly available in the first place. Among the artists called out: Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey and Metallica. Famously Metallica was outed after their original “S&M2” at the Chase Center in 2019 sold out in minutes as scalpers bought most of the tickets, with resales in the $1000s. Many top bands like Metallica have their own operative that works with Ticketmaster/Live Nation to choose the best seats at every show, so they can in effect “scalp their own tickets.” In fairness to Metallica, they did put on a second show geared toward fanclub and sales to real fans, as opposed to scalpers and bots. Ghost Cult covered that story extensively, which you can read here and even the US Congress reviewed the scandal. Continue reading →


Rage Against The Machine Announces Plan to Combat Online Ticket Scalpers Ahead of Their Tour

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Reunited Rap Metal legends Rage Against The Machine has announced a plan to combat online ticket scalping for its upcoming just announced world tour. Tickets for the 40-date “Public Service Announcement” trek don’t officially go on sale until later today Thursday, February 13, you can already buy tickets for most shows on StubHub and for festival dates on Ticketmaster. Unsurprisingly, those tickets are already quite expensive. For example, tickets to the April 28 Tacoma show were listed at $287 each before fees. After service fees and taxes, two tickets to the Oakland, California show on StubHub came out to $783.95, or $391.98 each. The band has made an announcement via their official web site:Continue reading →


Metallica Implicated in A Scam By Live Nation To Enable Scalpers and Bots

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In a shocking report by Billboard Magazine, Metallica has been linked to a scheme by Live Nation the number one concert promoter and venue owner in the world, to facilitated the transfer of thousands of concert tickets per show directly into the hands of resellers and scalpers at the request of certain artists. This is not limited to Metallica and there is no evidence the individual band members are involved in perpetrating the scheme. The proof came to Billboard via an admission on a taped conversation between Live Nation president of U.S. concerts, Bob Roux, longtime Metallica associate Tony DiCioccio, and an independent promoter named Vaughn Millette. The recording dates back to February 2017, shortly before the launch of Metallica’s “WorldWired Tour” in North America, and hears DiCioccio asking Roux to set aside a portion of tickets so that they could instead be sold on the secondary market. This entire situation came to light after bots and resellers seemed to buy up all of the tickets for Metallica’s S&M 20th Anniversary concert in San Francisco, this September.Continue reading →


Metallica Is Planning A Second Symphonic Show Only For Fan Club Members

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Following the recent announcement of Metallica’s reunion with the San Francisco Symphony for the 20th anniversary of S&M, and the subsequent debacle that saw scores of fans shut out of tickets by bots and scalpers, the band have announced they are planning a second show. Members of the bands fanclub, specifically legacy members promised early, unfettered access to ticket buying options were particularly bitter and outspoken on social media during and following three separate pre-sales and the public on-sale. Meanwhile, the band was patted on the back for selling out the all-new Chase Center so quickly, much the chagrin of fans. In the letter to fan club members below, Metallica extends an olive branch to try and fix this slight. The date of Sunday, September 8th has been announced for the show, but no one sale date yet. Maybe they ought to keep that part private, and just for the fans.  We are tracking this story at Ghost Cult for you, the real fans. Continue reading →


Metallica Fans Outraged as Scalpers Claim Most Tickets For Symphonic Concert

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Yesterday should have been a great day for Metallica fans. The band announced their 20th-anniversary concert to celebrate the release of the S & M (Elektra) album with the San Francisco Symphony. By partnering with the new venue the Chase Center, Metallica sacrificed their usual anti-scalping practices and ended up succumbing to Tickets today and Ticketmaster. Of course, the minute the fan pre-sale went live, some fans got tickets. But many more still were shut out by bots, clearly having infiltrated the fan club ticket event. Quickly the queue filled up with over 2000 places ahead of most trying to get through to make a purchase. Fans trying for the second pre-sale at 3 PM local time a few hours later were also, mostly shut out. Metal Insider reported on the outrage felt by fans and also the resale prices escalated grossly with tickets that were priced at face values of 50, 100, 250 and 500 going for up to $10000 USD. For many years Metallica’s fanclub was a paid membership, but the band made the Fifth Member Club free when they relaunched it last year. One of the main perks was to be unencumbered access to tickets. This isn’t strictly Metallica’s fault, but a brutal burn on fans. We have reported in the past that companies like Ticketmaster are colluding with scalpers, allowing Bots and artificially inflating the resale market at a profit, at the expense of fans. Continue reading →