Posted on 09/04/2025 5:55:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If you’ve ever tried to buy tickets to a major concert or sporting event, you know the scam. You spend hours in a “virtual queue,” only to watch tickets vanish in seconds. Scalpers and bots scoop up thousands, then flip them for double or triple the price. Fans refresh their browsers over and over, while Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, pocket the profits.
It’s a racket, and for decades the people who keep live entertainment alive — ordinary fans — have paid the price.
Fans don’t want excuses. They want a system that works for them, not one designed to funnel cash into a corporate machine while leaving families priced out.
That’s why President Trump plans to unveil a ticket reform package this month. His proposal promises to take on the corporate monopoly that dominates the industry and restore fairness to fans.
The problem is straightforward: Live Nation and Ticketmaster control roughly 70% of the ticketing and live events business — and about 80% of the primary ticketing market. According to the Justice Department, that dominance has allowed the conglomerate to dictate what fans can buy, what they must pay, and who gets access at all.
As Trump FTC Commissioner Mark Meador explained last year, “Live Nation Ticketmaster created a dominant conglomerate with an unprecedented amount of control over the live ticketing market, resulting in monopoly power it has used to entrench its position in the marketplace.”
Fans lose twice under this scheme. They pay outrageous fees when Ticketmaster sells the tickets the first time. Then they pay again when scalpers resell them — because Ticketmaster takes another cut.
Trump’s plan should target the obvious abuses by cracking down on bots that grab tickets before real people even have a chance, establishing distribution systems that treat fans fairly, and encouraging competition in a market currently controlled by one corporate behemoth.
Those reforms would finally level the playing field. But Live Nation-Ticketmaster has other ideas. The company now wants government-imposed price caps on resale tickets — a move that sounds like “reform” but would entrench its monopoly even further.
Former Trump Justice Department official Brian Pandya warned that such price controls would bankrupt Ticketmaster’s smaller rivals, eliminating competition altogether. Meanwhile, the $38 billion conglomerate could take the hit, since it also profits from artist management, promotion, and the 400-plus venues it controls nationwide. Price caps would squeeze everyone else out while leaving the monopoly stronger than ever.
The better path is obvious: Open up the marketplace. Strengthen enforcement against ticket bots. Redirect regulations to protect fans, not corporations. And if necessary, break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly entirely.
Fans don’t want excuses. They want a system that works for them, not one designed to funnel cash into a corporate machine while leaving families priced out of concerts, plays, and ball games.
Trump’s plan could finally deliver that. For once, fans might win — and the monopoly might lose.
The post The Ticketmaster scam Trump vows to crush appeared first on TheBlaze.
I have hated Ticketmaster for decades.
They’ve earned it.
L
Probably the best way to do it.
If Trump defeats Ticketmaster he will win a whole bunch of new fans. TM is universally hated I believe, this is a big win if it happens.
Will Pearl Jam be forced to support him?
Pretty sure they would be happy, but Eddie will never say a word of support.
Even this will not convert the 300 plus who crowded the Portland Maine City Council Chambers to rail against a LiveNation proposal to build a new theater in downtown Poetland Maine. Several of them tried to tie Trump and Republicans to LiveNation.
Could you please elaborate?
TicketBastard (tm)
LN/TM needs ripped to pieces and scattered into the wind, then start over. There has to be a better way.
Only Grateful Dead was able to defeat TM.
Or use my cure - don’t buy tickets from them. Concerts are almost as bad as movie theaters.
they must have pulled some real gangster moves to dominate concert ticket sales everywhere so much
Thank you for purchasing a ticket from X Arena.
To pick up your ticket(s), please bring your purchasing credit card and insert it into one of our ticket printing machines at the Arena.
You may buy a ticket for cash at our box office. Ten percent of our tickets are reserved for box office sale, one percent for each of the eight initial sales days and two percent for the date of the show. Only one ticket is sold per person presenting at the box office on the day of the show.
If you would like to resell your ticket, please follow the procedures given after clicking on the RESELL icon. Resales are not guaranteed and are done in order of submission. Resales will be available at the box office if not sold online.
And the government is largely to blame for that monopoly. LiveNation was founded expressly to break TM’s monopoly but of course, they merged and the government allowed it.
Ticketmaster/Live Nation is Trying to get a major music venue approved here in Portland, Maine. Local music venue owners are up in arms that it might be approved and put them all out of business.
What is being proposed is next door to the Portland City Hall auditorium which is a sizable operation by itself. If a musical event was scheduled at both locations on the same date, the traffic and parking situation would be insurmountable as they’re not asking Ticketmaster add in additional parking for their events. They’re talking 3000 or more seats in this new venue.
I’m glad most of my concert and sports event going days are over.
A local developer has teamed up with LiveNation to build 3,000 seat theater in downtown Portland Maine. The riff raff of Portland convince the city council to enact a 180 day moratorium on new venues citing bogus public safety concerns. I choose not to listen to the three hours of public comment, but I know the jist of what they said.
Why don’t they want it? Or are they shills for competing interests?
I’ve always called them “TicketShyster”
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