Ticketmaster Entertainment, LLC is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with events/concert promoter Live Nation under the name Live Nation Entertainment, with both brand names continuing to operate as subsidiaries of Live Nation Entertainment.
The company's ticket sales are fulfilled digitally or at its two main fulfillment centers located in Charleston, West Virginia, and Pharr, Texas, for both primary and secondary markets. Ticketmaster's clients include venues, artists and promoters. Clients control their events and set ticket prices, and Ticketmaster sells tickets that the clients make available to them. Ticketmaster also owns and operates TicketWeb, a ticketing website geared towards independent venues.
Ticketmaster is subject to numerous controversies and lawsuits, alleging violations of various laws. The platform charges a fee on tickets purchased and resold on the platform. The fees from ticket sales can account for a large percentage of overall ticket costs and have received scrutiny from regulators, customers, and musicians. The company has also faced scrutiny from the United States Department of Justice for retaliation against venues violating its 2010 10-year consent decree from the Live Nation merger, which has been extended an additional five years from 2020 through 2025.
Following the widespread criticism of the company's handling of the pre-sale of Taylor Swift's the Eras Tour in November 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) began a formal investigation into Live Nation Entertainment on the grounds of monopoly, antitrust law and consumer rights violations. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee examined the merger with a hearing in January 2023. On May 23, 2024, the DOJ and a coalition of 29 states formally launched an antitrust suit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. An additional 10 states joined the lawsuit, bringing the total number of co-plaintiffs to 40. In April 2026, a jury verdict was reached which found that Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment held an illegal monopoly which violated federal and state anti-trust laws and enabled Ticketmaster to overcharge in ticket prices.
History Ticketmaster was founded in Phoenix, Arizona in 1976 by college staffers Peter Gadwa and Albert Leffler, Gordon Gunn III, as well as businessman Jerry Nelson. The company originally licensed computer programs and sold hardware for ticketing systems. Its first ticketed concert was Electric Light Orchestra, held at the University of New Mexico.
In 1982, Fred Rosen was appointed CEO of Ticketmaster and moved the company to Los Angeles to be closer to the live entertainment industry. The move enabled the company to build contracts with many well-known venues including the LA Forum. Rosen drove investment into the company and led the switch to computerized ticketing. By 1985 the company had operations in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Under Rosen, the company moved into publishing and set up a travel agency and acquired rival Ticketron in 1991, making it the market leader.
In November 1993, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen acquired an 80% stake for more than $325 million.
InterActiveCorp years In 1998, USA Networks Inc., later named InterActiveCorp (IAC), purchased a majority stake in Ticketmaster. That same year, the company merged with CitySearch and was renamed Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. In May 2000, Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch acquired TicketWeb Inc., a ticket vendor that sold tickets online and over the phone. In 2003, IAC repurchased the remaining Ticketmaster stock that it had previously sold off.
In September 2006, Ticketmaster President Sean Moriarty told NPR that Ticketmaster had lobbied several states to enact laws that would limit the ticket resale market to authorized companies. Economists worried these laws would harm competition, but Moriarty expressed the need to reduce corrupt scalpers and counterfeit tickets.
In January 2008, Ticketmaster acquired Paciolan Inc., a developer of ticketing system applications and hosted ticketing systems, after litigation over the potential breach of antitrust laws.Yahoo! Business Form 10-Q for Ticketmaster Also in January, Ticketmaster acquired the UK-based secondary ticket marketplace, Getmein.com. And finally, in that same January, Ticketmaster acquired TicketsNow, a ticket reseller in the United States, for $265 million.
IAC spun off Ticketmaster as its own company in the summer of 2008. Later in 2008, Ticketmaster acquired Front Line Management, an artist management firm that worked with artists such as Aerosmith, Christina Aguilera and Jimmy Buffett. Front Line CEO Irving Azoff became CEO of the new company, which was renamed Ticketmaster Entertainment.
Live Nation merger In February 2009, Ticketmaster entered into an agreement to merge with event promoter Live Nation to form Live Nation Entertainment.Live Nation and Ticketmaster Agree to Merge New York Times. 10 February 2009. The deal was cleared by the U.S. Justice Department in January 2010 under the condition that the company sell Paciolan to Comcast Spectacor or another firm, and license its software to Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), its biggest competitor. The new company, which would be called Live Nation Entertainment, would also be subject to provisions for 10 years that prevented it from retaliating against venues that partnered with competing ticketing firms. When the DOJ planned to bring court proceedings against the company in 2020 for six violations to these provisions, Live Nation agreed to a settlement that extended them an additional five years to 2025. Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino was named CEO of the new company.
One year after merging, Live Nation settled a previous class action lawsuit against Ticketmaster which alleged that the company had misled plaintiffs in its descriptions of delivery and processing fees.
Growth and acquisitions In 2015, Ticketmaster acquired Front Gate Tickets, a music festival ticketing service that provided services for festivals including Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. The same year, the company acquired Universe, a DIY ticketing platform, and Two Toasters, a mobile app developer. In 2017, TicketWeb, Ticketmaster's self-service ticketing platform, acquired Strobe Labs, a marketing platform that allows users to market to fans through social media. In 2018, Ticketmaster acquired UPGRADED, a company which converts physical tickets into digital ones, utilising blockchain. In 2020, Ticketmaster acquired Taiwan's Tixcraft () for entering the Asian market.
Products and services
Ticketmaster sells tickets that its clients make available to it. In 2009, Ticketmaster released a digital ticketing system that required customers to prove their identity prior to purchase. The company believed this would help circumvent brokers and scalpers.
In 2016, Ticketmaster released a statement in favor of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act), which banned the use of ticket bots to buy large amounts of tickets online and resell them at inflated prices. The following year, the company filed a lawsuit against the ticket broker Prestige Entertainment after the company used bots to buy more than 30,000 tickets to the Broadway play Hamilton.
The company reported nearly 500 million tickets sold for 400,000 events in 2018.
In November 2020, Ticketmaster announced it will check the COVID-19 vaccination status of ticket buyers before issuing passes when live events return in 2021. Fans that either failed to verify their vaccination status or tested positive would be denied access to the event.
Pricing The face value of Ticketmaster tickets is determined by the artist or client. In addition to the face value price, venues and Ticketmaster add fees to pay for their services.
Typically, fees added to a ticket's face value have included:Ticketmaster Help, "How are ticket prices and fees determined?". 2021. Archived.
Facility charge – Charge added by the venue. Delivery fee – Charges added dependent on the ticket delivery method and credit card processing fees. Service fee – Sum of charges added based on the "agreement with each client (artists)" and the order processing fee. Ticketmaster "may earn a profit on the order processing fee".
As the Los Angeles Times has explained, "the 'service fee' is intentionally kept separate from the list price for two reasons: to make the base price of a ticket appear more affordable, and to create the impression that only Ticketmaster pockets that fee." In other words, "Ticketmaster is effectively paid to be a punching bag" for consumer frustration with opaque add-on fees, and then some of the fees find their way back to the artist or venue. Utilizing such subterfuge to extract additional revenue from fans without arousing direct backlash towards themselves has become increasingly important for artists. The collapse of record album sales after the year 2000 means that as of the 2020s, 95 percent of artist income comes from concert tours.
Fee amounts vary between events and are dependent on the venue, available delivery methods, and preferences of the artist. Some economists and activist groups have claimed that high ticket prices are due to a lack of competition within the music industry.
In 2013, the jam band The String Cheese Incident gave fans money to purchase 400 tickets to one of its shows in order to resell them on its own site with fewer fees. The band said they were protesting Ticketmaster's ticket fees, while Ticketmaster argued that the band was taking revenue from venues and promoters.
As of 2016, ticket resale was Ticketmaster's fastest growing business.
In 2022, Ticketmaster was experimenting with a demand-based, dynamic pricing which would vary the ticket price based upon demand. The new system is touted to give artists a higher share of the revenues that would otherwise be coming through resale ticket sales. In May 2025, Ticketmaster announced it would start showing how much buyers paid for tickets—fees included—before checkout. The company announced the "All In Prices" initiative as part of its efforts to comply with the Federal Trade Commission's ban on junk fees, which goes into effect on May 12, 2025.
Criticism and controversies
Anti-competition claims
In May 1994, the grunge band Pearl Jam filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice claiming Ticketmaster had cut the group out of venue bookings in a dispute over fees. Two of the band's members testified before the House Governmental Operations subcommittee. The investigation was closed without action in 1995, though the Justice Department stated it would continue to monitor the developments in the ticket industry. Chuck Philips, a reporter who covered the issue, was told by sources close to the case that the investigation was closed due to a combination of a shortage of resources and the case being difficult and having uncertain prospects.