Ticket Pricing

Seconds before the race begins, fingers tremble in anxiousness. Competitors brace themselves to test their decision-making speed at every checkpoint. Over 145 million people gather each year in hopes of one golden experience.

But this isn’t the 2026 Winter Olympics. This is live entertainment.

Calmly seated in front of a camera in what appears to be his living room, music artist Noah Kahan declares his team’s commitment to his fans. In preparation for touring his new album, The Great Divide, Kahan pledges that his team is doing everything they can to keep tickets affordable.

Meanwhile, Ticketmaster, the platform used to sell Noah Kahan’s tickets, has other plans. Ticketmaster and its parent company, LiveNation, operate as a monopoly within the music industry. In this context, it means Ticketmaster has very few competitors and controls almost all ticket sales, including about 80% of the primary ticketing at major concert venues.

But recently, things have changed: Ticketmaster is currently in a legal dispute with the federal government over this very issue. In September 2025, the United States Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster and LiveNation. In the 84-page lawsuit, the FTC argues that Ticketmaster encourages scalpers, entities that resell tickets at extremely high prices for a profit, to exploit consumers, artists, and venues on the platform.

While this legal dispute was unfolding, Ticketmaster also faced backlash from pop artist Olivia Dean, as fans overpaid for resale tickets while scalpers bought out her tour. In a press release on the issue, LiveNation CEO Michael Rapino states that the company “shares Olivia’s desire to keep live music accessible and ensure fans have the best access to affordable tickets.” He recommends artists opt in to “No-Fee Face Value Exchange,” a tool used by artists such as Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, and recently, Noah Kahan.

But what is Face Value Exchange? According to Ticketmaster, Face Value Exchange is a tool artists can use to cap resale prices for their concerts on Ticketmaster. If an artist chooses this method, tickets, including fees and taxes, can only be resold at the original price paid, known as “face value”.

That’s pretty optimistic. When announcing his tour, Noah Kahan’s team assured fans that they’re doing everything they can to keep the tickets in the hands of his listeners and out of the hands of scalpers. The tour completely sold out, selling over one million tickets total, and marking Kahan as the first artist in history to sell out four nights in a row at Boston’s Fenway Park. Similarly, Billie Eilish adopted this policy, limiting presales to people who had previously bought tickets to her shows or held American Express credit cards.

Despite successful ticket sales, not all seats went to the right people. Interestingly, though these stadiums appear sold out on Ticketmaster, sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub have plenty of available tickets. This means that even if artists set prices on Ticketmaster, the monopoly still prevails so long as third-party sites exist. This impacts the customer immensely: during his pre-sale, Noah Kahan priced most “front-porch” (closest to the stage) tickets for $100. The same tickets are now priced at over $1,500 on SeatGeek.

So even when Ticketmaster promises to maintain low prices to artists and fans, it continues to allow third-party resellers to use its services. Why? Because, as the FTC claims, it profits by charging usage fees. In its lawsuit, the FTC highlights that LiveNation considered the “potential financial impact” of limiting sales to 4-16 tickets per individual in early 2020, and found that it would decrease its annual revenue by nearly $220 million and operating income by $26 million. This is allegedly Ticketmaster’s motivation for encouraging third parties to use multiple accounts in order to circumvent its safety measures and policies.

In the short run, fans who are lucky enough to be at the top of the pre-sale queue will pay fair prices set by the artist. But in the long run, scalpers still win. If a fan doesn’t make it to the pre-sale or isn’t high enough in the queue, they are subject to higher third-party prices. Arguably, Face Value Exchange perpetuates this problem because the original tickets on Ticketmaster are priced lower to begin with, creating a larger profit margin for scalpers. This makes scalping even more profitable by opening an arbitrage opportunity to exploit the increasing gap between the artist’s set price and the market-clearing price.

However, there remain some positives. The United Kingdom recently vowed to ban the resale of concert tickets above face value. This would reduce the average ticket costs by an estimated $49 and save customers around $147 million a year. If such a policy can be enforced, Face Value Exchange could finally function as intended.

Focusing on the United States: as long as Ticketmaster does not implement security measures to prevent bots and scalpers from entering the app, Face Value Exchange will not protect artists and fans from the promise of lower ticket costs.

In fact, artists and fans should hope that it does not.

When Ticketmaster uses icons such as Noah Kahan, Olivia Dean, and Billie Eilish to advertise the effectiveness of Face Value Exchange, it does not lower prices—it just strengthens its argument against the FTC. As Ticketmaster consolidates further into a monopoly, it becomes more difficult to regulate the company over time, and a precedent is set. Moving forward, this could mean that the FTC will have a harder time regulating the entertainment industry when people need it the most.

This is imperative because the issue goes beyond concerts. Ticketmaster is a platform used for theater, family events, sports games, and more. The outcome of this case could dictate the prices Americans pay for entertainment for years to come, which is why it is critical to hold the company accountable, lest the blame for price strain be relegated to artists instead.

As the 2026 Winter Olympics come to an end, and fans prepare for a summer filled with entertainment, we are reminded that a gold win shouldn’t be awarded to the highest bidder or the fastest bot. For the integrity of live entertainment, the industry must ensure that the front row is reserved for dedicated fans whose fate lies in a courtroom. The true victory for consumers will not be found in sold-out stadiums, but rather in fair marketplaces where promises of policies are true at the finish line.