I don't believe a court would ever mandate this, but I'd like to see tickets sold by dutch auction: All tickets start off for sale at some very high price, like $10000, and the price declines by some amount every day until it reaches a reserve price on the day of the concert. Buyers can purchase as many tickets as they want, but professional resellers would have to guess the price that would let them clear their inventory at a profit. Under a system like this the best seats would go earliest (at the highest prices) while the nosebleed seats might still be available on day of the show, or not depending on demand.
* https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...
> 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.[50] The investigation was closed without action in 1995, though the Justice Department stated it would continue to monitor the developments in the ticket industry.[51][52]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster#Anti-competition_...
> By 1994, Pearl Jam was "fighting on all fronts" as its manager described the band at the time.[43] Reporter Chuck Philips broke a series of stories showing that Ticketmaster was gouging Pearl Jam's customers.[44] Pearl Jam was outraged when, after it played a pair of charity benefit shows in Chicago, it discovered that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. Pearl Jam was committed to keeping their concert ticket prices down but Fred Rosen of Ticketmaster refused to waive the service charge. Because Ticketmaster controlled most major venues, the band was forced to create from scratch its own outdoor stadiums in rural areas in order to perform. […]
> The United States Department of Justice was investigating the company's practices at the time and asked the band to create a memorandum of its experiences with the company. Band members Gossard and Ament testified at a subcommittee investigation on June 30, 1994, in Washington, D.C.[52]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Jam#Vs.,_Vitalogy_and_de...
That paid for the equipment, maintenance, the ticket stock, the central computer, but not the leased phone line (the store paid for that).
These days, you're using your computer, your paper (or phone), and afterwards you have nothing collectible. The surcharge can be $40 or more.
Why the huge difference? It can't all be inflation. I think it's primarily because of monopolistic power and collusion with the venue[0]. But also - when bands toured back then it was considered supplemental income to the sale of the album. These days they hardly make anything off album sales/streaming, and more of their income comes from touring (ticket and merchandise sales).
[0] You could buy tickets at the venue and not pay the surcharge. But now Ticketmaster gets their cut even if you do that.
- https://apnews.com/article/live-nation-ticketmaster-antitrus...
- https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/arts/music/live-nation-an... or https://archive.is/KA1wV
Background story by Matt Stoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-tic... (April 13, 2026)
> Ticketmaster sells about 10 times as many tickets as its closest rival, AEG.
Yeah, that's called a monopoly, even if it wasn't Ticketmaster's intention, which of course it was.
I'm already planning what I'm going to do with the $0.20 refund I receive for each ticket I bought.
They never should've been allowed to merge. Funnily enough Ticketmaster has the only free API I've found for concert data and it has a ton of results because it is a monopoly.
Music festivals were a sort of guerilla attack on lack of venue contracts.
I feel like I could ping any random HN user and build something better in a week, which means it has been done many times already... why don't alternatives gain traction?
But it’s easy to scare an individual artist, or make them feel like they’re locked into a contract, and fame is such a precipice. I suppose that makes it hard for them to work together for their own good.
Ironically sometimes artists complain about Ticketmaster and their stranglehold, but again, it takes some special bravery to actually do something about it.
I think the decimal point is a few digits too many to the left here... The various "fees" routinely add up to hundreds
Absolute horseshit. They were screwing consumers for more than that since the '80s. Over the last 20 years? It's 10 or 20 times that.
WTF.