Live performance goers celebrated the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster on Thursday, which has lengthy been accused of monopolistic practices which have enabled it to get a stranglehold on the ticketing of stay occasions within the US.
Music lovers took to social media to surprise why it took the federal government so lengthy to behave towards Dwell Nation — notably in gentle of frequent complaints from ticket purchasers that they fell sufferer to alleged worth gouging by the corporate.
An Australia-based fan of Aerosmith took to Reddit to complain in regards to the exorbitant charges that he says he needed to pay for 2 tickets to the band’s upcoming New 12 months’s Eve live performance in Boston.
“For a live performance I anticipate to pay $10 or so for charges,” the Reddit consumer who goes by the title “scottywiper” wrote.
He stated that after shopping for two tickets to the Aerosmith present in Boston, he was pressured to pay charges which exceeded $120.
“WTF! Tickets have been $311, value for 2 was $770,” he wrote, including: “Unimpressed.”
William Pierre-Louis, a Washington, DC-based public coverage analyst, posted a screenshot of a purchase order for $49.50 for a ticket to see R&B performer Tank at The Theater at MGM Nationwide in close by Maryland.
“The worth for one ticket was $49.50. After I tried to take a look at, the overall rapidly went as much as $71.00,” Pierre-Louis wrote on X.
“Severely, how is that this okay?”
One other commenter on Reddit wrote that he needed to purchase tickets for Ringling Bros. Circus for him and his girlfriend.
Whereas the face worth of the seats have been $35 apiece, the ultimate quantity he ended up paying — together with charges and taxes — was $113.
“What within the precise f–okay,” he wrote.
Dwell Nation has denied the federal government’s allegations that it’s a monopoly.
The corporate released a statement on its website on Thursday saying that the lawsuit “received’t scale back ticket costs or service charges.”
“[The DOJ complaint] blames live performance promoters and ticketing corporations — neither of which management ticket costs — for top ticket costs,” Dwell Nation stated in its assertion.
The corporate stated that the Justice Division is ignoring “all the things that’s truly accountable for increased ticket costs, from rising manufacturing prices to artist reputation, to 24/7 on-line ticket scalping that reveals the general public’s willingness to pay way over main tickets value.”
Ticketmaster “retains solely a modest portion of” the service charges, in response to the assertion.
