Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation, said it will begin limiting everyone, including ticket brokers, to one account amid accusations that the company colluded with ticket scalpers.
Live Nation revealed the new policy in a letter to Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Ben Ray Luján, who sent an inquiry to the company following a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC said Ticketmaster and Live Nation coordinated with third-party ticket brokers and allowed them to harvest millions of dollars’ worth of tickets. Those tickets were then sold at prices well above face value in the secondary market, the FTC said.
The suit alleges the companies were aware that ticket brokers used fake IP addresses to get around ticket-buying limits meant to prevent brokers from purchasing tickets in large quantities. Ticketmaster then knowingly allowed these brokers to resell the tickets at higher prices, with Ticketmaster collecting fees on the resold tickets, according to the FTC.
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In its response to Blackburn and Luján, Live Nation said it has "done more than anyone else" to fight bad actors.
"The FTC complaint creates this misimpression by conflating 'conspiracy' with a longstanding practice of primary ticketing companies allowing ticket brokers to maintain multiple accounts," the letter reads. "That ticket brokers have been allowed to maintain multiple accounts is true; calling that conspiracy is specious. The reality is that brokers have had multiple accounts for a very long time."Live Nation said the practice of brokers opening multiple accounts dates back to when physical tickets were sold and companies used multiple employees to stand in line for tickets.
But Live Nation agrees the practice of brokers using multiple accounts to try to gain tickets has been "abused."
"To counter this increasingly unfair behavior, our policy will now be to limit everyone and every entity, ticket brokers included, to only one Ticketmaster account," Live Nation said. "This is not easy to do—and we know scalpers will do everything in their power to undermine us. But fortunately, we have new AI tools and identity verification technology that we think makes this a reasonable aspiration."Live Nation said all accounts that attempt to resell tickets will be required to provide a taxpayer identification number, such as a Social Security number.
The National Independent Venue Association said the new measures are merely an "attempt to clean up" Live Nation's public image.
"The meaningful way to repair the damage done by Live Nation’s alleged collusion with scalpers is for them to voluntarily cap resale tickets on their resale platform at no more than the face value of the original ticket," the organization said.
