In this era of partisan rancor and ideological polarization, there appears to be at least one thing Americans of all political persuasions can still agree on: Buying concert tickets sucks.
On Wednesday evening, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission announced that they were kicking off an inquiry into “anticompetitive practices and conduct in the live concert and entertainment industry” and asked the public to submit comments on the issue.
The move was prompted by a White House executive order instructing federal regulators and law enforcement to take action against online ticket scalpers, which President Trump signed last month while joined in the Oval Office by a stars-and-stripes bedecked Kid Rock.
“Many Americans feel like they are being priced out of live entertainment by scalpers, bots, and other unfair and deceptive practices,” FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement. “Now their voices are being heard. President Trump has sent a clear message that bad actors who exploit fans and distort the marketplace will not be tolerated.”
The attempt to make ticket-buying a less maddening experience represents a rare point of continuity between the Trump and Biden administrations.
The former president made taking on ticket brokers a major part of his administration’s war on “junk fees,” singling out the pesky and expensive hidden charges fans often find tacked on as they go to check out. The issue got a public boost after sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour caused Ticketmaster’s website to crash, triggering a furious fan backlash against the company.
In December, the FTC finalized a bipartisan rule that banned junk fees on live event tickets as well as hotels, which is set to finally take effect next week. (Ferguson, the current chair who was then one of two Republicans on the commission, backed the regulation.)
In an arguably more dramatic step, Biden’s Justice Department also sought to break up Live Nation, the entertainment behemoth that owns both Ticketmaster and hundreds of venues worldwide, filing an antitrust suit last year in which it accused the company of illegally trying to stamp out competition from other ticketing platforms, among other monopolistic abuses.
Trump largely appears to be building on those efforts. The Justice Department has continued to pursue its case against Live Nation, and in March, a federal judge rejected the company’s effort to throw out some claims from the suit. Trump’s executive order on scalping followed weeks later.
Among other steps, the order instructs the FTC to “rigorously enforce” the Better Online Ticket Sales (or BOTS) Act, an Obama-era law designed to stop automated buyers from snapping up seats for resale before real fans can access them. According to a White House fact sheet, the FTC has only taken action under the law once since it was enacted. It also urges the agency to consider taking action against “anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market” and to ensure companies are keeping prices transparent, in keeping with the new junk fee rule.
As the ticket market has come under increasing scrutiny nationally, a fierce lobbying battle has broken out over who exactly is to blame for the high costs consumers are paying to see a show. On one side, critics of Ticketmaster have argued that its iron hold on the industry has driven up costs. But Live Nation (LYV) and some others have argued that scalpers, including platforms like SeatGeek and StubHub that facilitate resales, are more to blame.
Trump, for his part, appears to be trying to crack down on both sides.
The effort is in some ways just a small example of how, even as it has tried to reverse much of Biden’s regulatory agenda, the Trump administration has stuck with some of its major antitrust initiatives. Despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appeals to the president, the FTC has continued to pursue a major antitrust suit against Meta. It has also decided to stick with the merger guidelines that were updated under former Chair Lina Khan. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has continued to push ahead with its suit against Google (GOOG).
Josh Withrow, a fellow at the center-right R Street Institute who has written on the ticket market and the government’s suit against Live Nation, said that beyond enforcing laws on the books, it wasn’t clear whether there were many new regulations Trump could pursue to combat scalping. The White House could push Congress to pass the TICKETS Act, which includes consumer-friendly reforms on issues like fees and refunds and tries to combat some particularly abusive scalping practices.
But he added that it made sense Trump would stick with Biden’s initiative.
“It makes sense as an easy political win,” Withrow said. “If there’s one thing there’s political consensus on, it’s that everyone is mad at the ticket markets and fees.”
Jordan Weissmann is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance.
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