Virginia joins FTC suit against Ticketmaster, Live Nation

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares joined the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster LLC.

In a Sept. 18 press release from Miyares’ office, the attorney general stated that the coalition is filing suit to seek enforcement of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, colloquially known as the BOTS Act. The legislation prohibits circumventing a ticket seller’s security measures when buying tickets via an online platform and prohibits reselling tickets if the seller “participated directly in or had the ability to control the conduct” circumventing the measures.

In the suit, the coalition alleged Ticketmaster violated consumer protection laws and drove up ticket prices by allowing brokers to circumvent its security measures and buy more tickets than the set limit for consumers.

The press release from Miyares’ office alleges brokers created “hundreds to thousands of fake accounts to buy up tickets, which Ticketmaster then resold on its own secondary marketplace,” creating profits for both Ticketmaster and the broker.

“Ticketmaster should be preventing this conduct, not enabling it by turning a blind eye to brokers’ illegal ticket harvesting and reselling the tickets for even more profit,” Miyares said via release. “Virginia consumers deserve a chance to purchase tickets at prices that are not illegally inflated.”

Per the lawsuit, which was filed Sept. 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Virginia is seeking a permanent injunction, damages, restitution and other relief pursuant to the BOTS Act.

Besides Virginia, the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah joined the FTC in its lawsuit.

Ticketmaster first entered the legislative microscope in 2022 following a breakdown in ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, a cultural phenomenon which ultimately became the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. Ticketmaster said the site was overwhelmed by bot traffic, with thousands of people losing tickets after spending hours in an online queue.

In the wake of the fallout of the Eras Tour ticket sales, the U.S. Senate held a 2023 hearing with Live Nation, where the Senate Judiciary Committee took aim at the company’s dominance in the ticketing industry and proposed possible action.

And shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the FTC to “take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market.”

Miyares previously was part of a coalition of 40 attorneys general who sued Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2024, alleging it violated antitrust laws via anticompetitive practices with the goal of controlling the live entertainment ticketing industry.

That suit remains pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after Live Nation’s partial motion to dismiss was denied earlier this year.