The nation’s biggest ticket sellers agreed to provide “all-in” pricing that will finally shed light on so-called “junk fees” after President Biden vowed to crack down on the surreptitious surcharges.
Ticketmaster, Live Nation and SeatGeek were among the private companies invited to the White House on Thursday that have committed to fully disclose fees to consumers upfront.
Biden launched a broader effort to crack down on junk fees imposed by ticket companies, banks, airlines and other industries last September.
The ticketing sites in particular have come under fire for burying fees in the fine print and at checkout that charge eventgoers hundreds of dollars more than what was originally advertised when they were selecting seats.
The move will make it easier for live event guests to “comparison shop” and find the best deal among competitors.
Live Nation committed to roll out all-in pricing in September and is expected to affect over 30 million ticket buyers who attend more than 200 shows at Live Nation-owned venues across the US, the White House said.
Ticketmaster — which merged with Live Nation in 2010 and sells 70% of the tickets for major US concerts — said it will implement a similar transparent model that provides where ticket costs will be one “clear, total price.” The firm did not provide a date when the new service will begin.
Resale ticketing platform SeatGeek, which has expanded into the primary market, pledged to “roll out product features over the course of the summer to make it easier for its millions of customers to shop on the basis of all-in price,” the White House added.
Representatives for Live Nation and SeatGeek did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Since Biden first called on Congress to pass legislation that mandates “honest, transparent pricing,” New York became the first state to pass a bill banning hidden fees in live-event ticketing.
California followed suit and Tennessee is next to introduce similar state-level legislation, The Wall Street Journal reported, though ticketing bosses have said the language in the bills allow for loopholes that render them ineffective.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) passed a bill in April to mandate all-in pricing on a federal level to curb ticketing companies from locking venues into long-term contracts and improve competition in the market.
The proposition requires the FTC to determine at what point these contracts reach the point of “excessive duration,” which is predicted to be at the four-year mark, The Journal reported.
The Cure frontman Robert Smith told fans he was “as sickened as you all are” when he heard of the inflated prices before the band’s US tour began March.
The ticket prices, which started at $20 and reached hundreds of dollars, later doubled in price thanks because of the junk fees.
A disgruntled fan on Twitter shared how he was “absolutely rinsed with ridiculous extra charges” when he bought four tickets priced at $20 each but paid a final sum of $172 due to a service fee of $46, a $40 facility charge, and a $5 processing fee.
Also in March, when Bruce Springsteen was set to hit the road with the E Street Band for the first time in six years, fans were floored by seats going for as much as $5,000 apiece.
The four-digit ticket prices were a result of Ticketmaster’s system of “dynamic pricing,” in which an algorithm fluctuates prices in real-time based on supply and demand.
Fans who bought tickets to Taylor Swift’s sought-after Eras Tour also experienced a costly ticketing disaster when a frenzy of customers rushing to Ticketmaster as soon as tickets dropped caused a technical fiasco with inflated prices.
In a shocking move, the snafu caused Ticketmaster to cancel its general public ticket sale for the tour, which kicked off in mid-March and is set to run through November.
The top face value of tickets was $499, most much lower. Yet one survey found the average fan paid $700 for “cheap seats,” and one Massachusetts man shelled out $21,000 for four.
Last-minute tickets to the next Eras Tour stop — slated for June 16-17 in Pittsburgh — will run fans thousands.
The cheapest seats The Post could find for the siren’s two-night residency at Acrisure Stadium was $1,241 before fees on Vivid Seats, which doesn’t provide a breakdown of its junk fees.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
