Ticketmaster has welcomed the US Federal Trade Commission’s move to hold a workshop to examine consumer protection and competition issues related to the online event-ticket marketplace.
The public workshop, which will to be held on March 27, 2019 in Washington DC, will bring together a variety of stakeholders, including industry representatives, consumer advocates, trade associations, academics and government officials, to discuss problematic practices in the online event ticket marketplace.
Ticketmaster said in a statement: “Ticketmaster welcomes and looks forward to participating in the FTC workshop on online ticketing in March 2019. To be clear, this is an industry-wide workshop – not a probe.
“We encourage other ticketing companies to take part in educating consumers and lawmakers on the opportunities and challenges in the ticketing industry and to join us in further action to improve the consumer ticket buying experience, including aggressive enforcement of the BOTS Act, the elimination of speculative ticket sales and restrictions on deceptive marketing and misleading ticketing URLs.”
The FTC said it is looking to gather public input prior to the workshop, including possible discussion topics and potential participants.
Topics that may be covered during the workshop on both primary and secondary ticketing markets include transparency, bots, fees and consumer confusion due to advertising.
The FTC said in a statement: “The Commission has a strong interest in protecting consumer confidence in the online marketplace. Issues that frequently arise in connection with online event ticket sales include practices that prevent consumers from obtaining tickets, mislead consumers about price or availability, or mislead consumers about the entity from which they are purchasing.”
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