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.
Why don’t they want it? Or are they shills for competing interests?
Correct.
Why don’t they want it? Or are they shills for competing interests?
Correct.
Would we even understand it, if he did?
🤔
“they must have pulled some real gangster moves to dominate concert ticket sales everywhere so much”
They must have. Phil Basile was the mob guy ran the rock music scene on Long Island for many years. Clubs, concert promotion, he ran the rock scene.
Ultimately, the fans don’t mind to pay the inflated price to see their cult-heroes.
Concerts, etc. seem to always sell out and prove it with swollen attendance.
Change the money flow?
Right, like...what?...taxing cigarettes?
Worked, right?
Review
I would have thought simple antitrust enforcement could handle this. Too concentrated a market, with venues losing some of the margin that the secondary market took.
As to the ticket purchasers, so what if you have to wait in line to “buy wholesale” and the online scalpers who are eager to serve are more expensive? Will the final price really be cheaper concert venues are able to capture much of the revenue that scalpers get now?
How about no scalping allowed?
Who’s to say that someone can’t resell something they’ve bought? You get some wacko rules about that in software, but what’s the need for extending it to ticket sales?
The simple way to beat them is to recognize there hasn’t been any good music since the late 1980’s. Maybe one or two songs a year since then are worth listening to more than once. Since there is no good music, no need to waste money going to see people who make noise, not music. Other entertainment types will find a way to survive and maybe we can be rid of crap music one day. IMHO
Ticketmaster and parking chargers are killing concerts and sporting events.
The only way that will end outside of prison sentences is when fans refuse to pay the inflated prices.
FTC sues Ticketmaster and Live Nation over ticket brokers and fees
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/18/ftc-ticketmaster-live-nation-ticket-brokers
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