Ticketmaster announced the release of all-in pricing in September, a feature that is supposed to display the complete price for a live event ticket on the platform, including all of the fees associated with it before a user checks out. The company also said that Live Nation—another entity under the Live Nation Entertainment banner—would roll out all-in pricing on Sept. 25 of this year. Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced their commitment to all-in pricing during a White House meeting this June during which executives from the likes of SeatGeek, Airbnb, TickPick, and DICE were also in attendance. However, Gizmodo and NBC News found evidence that all-in pricing may not be available for all concerts.
A previous version of this article cited reporting from NBC News that found that for more than 90% of the 40 events reviewed by the outlet, Ticketmaster listed the price of the tickets without any fees. If users wanted to see the total price, they had to log into their Ticketmaster account or navigate to a filter menu to switch on the option to view all-in pricing. NBC News removed its review of Ticketmaster concerts and clarified yesterday evening that consumers can turn on all-in pricing. The outlet also clarified that Live Nation pledged to roll out all-in pricing in Live Nation venues in September.
When Gizmodo investigated the matter, we found contradicting evidence, in which the company was listing the entire price of a ticket on the Ticketmaster platform, including all fees. However, tickets listed on Live Nation simply listed the base price “+ Fees” without clearly indicating what those fees were until a user signed into their account and went to check out. In one such case, which involved an October 28 concert for the pop artist Slayyyter, a ticket listed as “$35 + Fees” ended up costing $48 at checkout with that price including a $13 “Service Fee” added onto the base price.
A spokesperson for Ticketmaster told Gizmodo in an email that the company fulfilled its commitments to all-in pricing as previously announced during its meeting with the White House. “What NBC printed was inaccurate and we have already contacted them for correction,” the spokesperson wrote to Gizmodo in an email Wednesday. The spokesperson further clarified that Live Nation concerts that went on sale prior to September 25—such as the Slayyyter concert Gizmodo identified—would not include all-in pricing, as the feature would only affect concerts with tickets released after the September date.
The issue caught the ire of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who addressed Ticketmaster in a letter Tuesday that was obtained by NBC News and required the company to amend their all-in pricing visibility by the end of the month.
“The existence of this filter shows that Live Nation-Ticketmaster has the technical ability to display all-in prices, but chooses not to display that price to consumers as the default setting,” Sen. Klobuchar said in the letter posted on her website. “Although Live Nation-Ticketmaster does not set all of the fees charged on its platform, you have a responsibility to be upfront with customers about the full cost of their tickets.”
Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino wrote a response letter to Sen.Klobuchar on Wednesday, which the company provided to Gizmodo in an email. In that letter, Rapino confirmed that Ticketmaster rolled out all-in pricing in venues that it owns, as well as complied with laws in regions that require all-in pricing, such as New York. Rapino wrote that Live Nation has also met its previously announced rollout of all-in pricing.
“Live Nation also operates concert venues and festivals in the U.S., and therefore we could institute all-in pricing at those venues and festivals,” Rapino wrote. “We therefore announced at the White House forum on June 15 that Live Nation would adopt all-in pricing ‘for concerts at the venues and festivals the company operates across the United States starting this September.’ We have met that commitment.”
While excessive fees have been annoying concertgoers, travelers, and sports fans alike for years, the issue truly came to a head in the public consciousness last fall. After singer-songwriter Taylor Swift announced her highly anticipated first tour in five years, dubbed The Eras Tour, Ticketmaster crashed as Swifties flocked to the tour’s presale. While Ticketmaster outages were understandably enraging for fans, many Swifties were also dismayed by the excessive ticket prices—a jarring portion of those prices were comprised of excess fees.
During a Senate hearing—which was chaired by Klobuchar—following The Eras Tour presale madness, Live Nation Entertainment President and CFO Joe Berchtold testified that the company did nothing but improve the artist-fan relationship since Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010. Berchtold further said that Ticketmaster does not set prices, does not decide how many tickets go on sale, and does not set service fees. He also shifted the blame from Ticketmaster and claimed that outages during The Eras Tour were caused by those damn bots.
Correction October 26: This article’s headline and body have been corrected from their original form. A previous version of this article mistakenly referred to Live Nation Entertainment as Live Nation Ticketmaster. References to Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster, and Live Nation have been clarified. We have updated our reporting as well to indicate that the Slayyyter concert Gizmodo identified listed tickets for sale before Sept. 25—prior to the roll out of all-in pricing on Live Nation—which is why the service fee was still hidden from the upfront price.
This reporting also cites an article by NBC News, which claimed to have found evidence that Ticketmaster was hiding fees from consumers. After the publication of this article, NBC News clarified that Live Nation committed to releasing all-in pricing on Sept. 25, while Ticketmaster consumers can view all-in pricing by toggling the option on.
This article was also updated to include follow-up comments from a Ticketmaster spokesperson, who also provided Gizmodo with Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino’s reply letter to Senator Amy Klobuchar in an email. The spokesperson also clarified that concerts that went on sale on the Live Nation platform before the September 25 date would not display all-in pricing.
