Live Nation paying $9.9 million to settle D.C. hidden fee claims

Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has agreed to wage $9.9 cardinal to resoluteness a Washington, D.C. user extortion probe into deceptive summons pricing practices that spanned astatine slightest a decade, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced Monday.

Of that total, up to $8.9 cardinal volition beryllium refunded to Live Nation customers. The lawyer general's bureau said it volition denote the details of a claims process successful the coming months.

The probe recovered that from 2015 until May 2025, Live Nation advertised artificially debased summons prices and disclosed mandatory fees lone astatine checkout — aft consumers had already spent clip selecting tickets. The institution besides failed to adequately explicate the quality and intent of the fees it charged, according to the lawyer general's office. Pressure tactics were besides portion of the complaint: a countdown timer and pop-up alerts gave consumers the misleading content that seats were astir to merchantability out. Schwalb noted that the level would aboveground the operation "Tickets are selling fast. Get yours present earlier they're gone" whenever a idiosyncratic went idle for sixty seconds oregon more, adjacent erstwhile genuine request for the lawsuit did not warrant specified a warning.

"For astatine slightest a decade, Live Nation and Ticketmaster boosted profits by charging predatory, hidden fees," Schwalb said successful a statement. "With this settlement, we're putting millions of dollars backmost into the pockets of DC fans and ensuring that the terms fans spot erstwhile they archetypal commencement buying for tickets is the terms they really pay."

Under the colony terms, Live Nation indispensable show the afloat summons terms — including each mandatory fees, minus taxes — connected the summons enactment leafage and passim the acquisition process connected its website and apps. The institution indispensable besides supply further disclosures astir the intent of its fees and however they are distributed among parties progressive successful staging a unrecorded event. It indispensable further update its inactivity announcement to much accurately picture however the ticket-hold process works.

Live Nation has already made changes to its level successful effect to the probe and to a Federal Trade Commission regularisation connected unfair and deceptive fees, the lawyer general's bureau said.

The colony resolves a user extortion substance that is abstracted from the lawyer general's ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, which alleges the institution illegally monopolized the unrecorded amusement industry. According to Billboard, a justice successful that lawsuit is weighing penalties that could see a imaginable merchantability of Ticketmaster.

The crackdown connected opaque ticketing fees extends beyond Live Nation. According to Billboard, StubHub reached a $10 cardinal statement with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this period aft regulators accused the resale level of knowingly and temporarily flouting recently enacted national all-in pricing requirements.