Live Nation backs Biden’s fee transparency call

Live Nation has backed US president Joe Biden’s call for transparency around ticketing fees.

At last month’s meeting of the White House Competition Council, Biden called for the reduction or elimination of hidden fees, charges, and add-ons for everything from banking services to airline and concert tickets.

He addressed the matter again yesterday (26 October), outlining steps he said “will immediately start saving Americans, collectively, billions of dollars” in unfair “junk fees”.

“Today’s actions are going to save consumers more than $1 billion each year. And that’s a lot of money back in people’s pockets,” added Biden. “And we’re just getting started. There are tens of billions of dollars in other junk fees across the economy, and I’ve directed my administration to reduce or eliminate them.

“Last week, the Federal Trade Commission started work on a rule to crack down on unfair and deceptive fees across all industries, fees that were never disclosed. And there was no way to avoid the fee, like processing fees for concert tickets.”

“We applaud President Biden’s advocacy for fee transparency in every industry, including live event ticketing”

Live Nation has now issued a statement in support of the president’s stance, while endorsing a law passed in New York this summer requiring ticket sellers to share all fees upfront.

“We applaud President Biden’s advocacy for fee transparency in every industry, including live event ticketing,” says the company. “Live Nation Entertainment advocated for the all-in pricing mandate passed in New York earlier this year, which requires face-value prices and fees to be shown upfront – and we support the FTC mandating this nationally.

“We operate ticketing marketplaces in 30+ countries around the world and have seen all-in pricing adopted successfully in many countries when mandated across the board. This only works if all ticketing marketplaces go all-in together, so that consumers truly have accurate comparisons as they shop for tickets.”

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