WASHINGTON — Ticketmaster, the country’s largest ticket seller, will begin disclosing fees up front after angry Taylor Swift fans demanded change and the Federal Trade Commission proposed new regulations.
Ticketing companies including SeatGeek and Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, committed at a White House round table Thursday to disclose all fees at the start of the sale process, eliminating what President Joe Biden and the FTC have described as “junk fees.”
Two parallel forces probably prompted Live Nation’s announcement, former FTC officials told the Los Angeles Times: a pending FTC rule that would regulate added fees and a public campaign against Ticketmaster by an army of Swift fans who struggled to get tickets to the singer’s 2023 U.S. tour. Ticket sellers may also be thinking about lawmakers in Washington, who are weighing legislation to prohibit junk fees.
