Rock shares his thoughts on the FTC lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster
Earlier this year, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to protect fans from exploitative ticket scalping and bring commonsense reforms to America’s live entertainment ticketing industry. In March, Trump was joined by Conservative musician Kid Rock in the Oval Office to combat unscrupulous middlemen who impose egregious fees on fans with no benefit to artists.
Ticket scalpers use bots and other unfair means to acquire large quantities of face-value tickets, then resell them at an enormous markup on the secondary market, price-gouging consumers and depriving fans of the opportunity to see their favorite artists without incurring extraordinary expenses. By some reports, fans have paid as much as 70 times the face value of a ticket price to obtain a ticket, but only the scalper and ticketing agencies benefit from this. The artists don’t see any of this additional money.
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states sued Ticketmaster and Live Nation for their alleged illegal practices. Rock took to social media today (Tues, Oct 7th), where he shared his thoughts in an NSFW tirade.
“They filed a fucking lawsuit against Ticketmaster cause clearly they found out that those motherfuckers are crooks and have been crooks for decades. Fucking over the public, fucking over the artists. Now, somehow, can I flip this phone around? Somehow, I got one of the World Orbs, and that proves that you’re a human. [It] comes with an app, you download it, proof of human. Proof of humanity. This thing would cut the bots out, cut the scalpers out immediately,” Rock says. “Somehow, I got one in my fucking house, but the ticketing companies can’t figure this out. You know why? Because every time you buy a ticket and go to a concert, you’re their worst customer. They want that ticket to resell on their own platform so they fuck everybody twice. They get the service charges, they get another 17 percent or something on top of all the other horse shit they are dicking you around with.”
The suit claims that Ticketmaster allows brokers to post illegally obtained tickets for resale on its platform, then profits from the additional fees and markups it unilaterally adds to the resale tickets. The suit alleges that the companies have consistently declined to deploy additional technology that would more effectively prevent brokers from evading ticket limits because such tactics would decrease their revenue, according to internal company documents. In 2021, the company opted against using third-party identity verification because it was “too effective,” according to the lawsuit.
“I don’t know if breaking Ticketmaster will solve the problem. I’m not sure if this orb solves it, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Rock states. “I know this — none of the company ticketing companies are using it. Somehow, I got one in my fucking house, but they can’t figure it out. They’re full of shit. They could’ve stopped the bots years ago. They could’ve fixed this fucking problem, and they haven’t because they’re greedy fucks! I hope they go down personally, right to the fucking bottom! Fuck them! And I hope we can figure out ticketing so we as artists when we set the price, we can get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the price we set. I know that’s not really — I’m a capitalist to the bone and there are some questions, but these bad actors and all the ticketing companies — scalpers, brokers, whatever you wanna call them — they’ve hid behind the disguise of capitalism for years. Fuck them! This is one that we need some regulations on, either a price cap. I’d say ten percent. You can’t resell a ticket for ten percent, 15 percent, like some European countries, or use this proof of human thing. Whatever it takes, I shouldn’t be the one to figure it out. These motherfuckers should, but they haven’t.”
Rock is calling on other musicians to join the fight against marking up concert tickets.
“They raped us for fucking years! Fuck ’em! [I] hope they all go down. But really, what I hope for is that we can fix ticketing for the fans. By the way, they’ve been fucking the artists, too, but I’m kind of second that equation. I want the fans to be able to go to a show at the prices I set for my ticket, and most artists do. We’ll see if any other artists get on board by the way with the lawsuit and their management, if they want to talk and tell them about the bullshit that’s going on for decades. A lot of them will puss out — straight up pussies. All these outlaw country singers, they’ll be a bunch of fucking pussies when they should they should speak up for their fans. Let’s see if Pearl Jam steps up. They wanted to fix ticketing years ago. They probably won’t cause they’ll be like, ‘Oh, we hate Donald Trump. We have Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ All these other presidents could’ve fucking done something — Bush, Obama, Clinton. They didn’t do shit. Nobody has. Trump is! We are! So, calling your bluff right now. Let’s see what happens.”
The FTC alleges that these practices violate the FTC Act’s prohibition on deceptive acts or practices in the marketplace and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. The FTC is seeking civil penalties against Ticketmaster and any additional monetary relief that the court finds appropriate.
