TJ Chambers
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Earlier this week (31st March, 2025) you may have noticed that President Trump accompanied by Kid Rock signed an Executive Order #14254 (Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market – https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/03/2025-05906/combating-unfair-practices-in-the-live-entertainment-market) which modestly stated that ‘America’s live concert and entertainment industry is the envy of the world’, which is obviously one perspective, and then continued, ‘But it has become blighted by unscrupulous middlemen who sit at the intersection between artists and fans and impose egregious fees while providing minimal value.’
To clarify which particular ‘unscrupulous middlemen’ were charging ‘egregious fees’ the statement continued, ‘Ticket scalpers use bots and other unfair means to acquire large quantities of face-value tickets and then re-sell 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.’
For many in the live music industry this was as neat a summary of the activities of the unauthorised secondary marketplaces as you could get.
Which confused many observers as this apparent moment of clarity jarred with the combative confusion and incoherence experienced in other aspects of the regime’s grasp of diversity, equality and inclusion, immigration, international trade, or the role of the judiciary and government etc.
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Nevertheless, the Executive Order (EO) outlined several next steps to combat the apparently unfair practices of the live concert and entertainment industry which included:
directing the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce antitrust laws within the concert and entertainment industry
commanded the FTC and state consumer protection authorities to enforce the Better Online Tickets Sales (BOTS) Act, a 2016 federal law designed to prevent scalpers from using bots to buy tickets in bulk
demanded the FTC ensure greater price transparency throughout the ticket-buying process, including the secondary market
required the FTC to evaluate and if necessary, enforce action against ‘unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market’
and lastly, that the U.S. Treasury and Attorney General should ensure that ticket scalpers were fully complaint with state and federal tax codes.
The third section of the EO mandates the Attorney General, FTC and the U.S. Treasury to issue a report within 180 days summarizing their steps taken to curb any identified unfair practices along with recommendations for new regulations or legislation to better protect consumers.
Despite the Attorney General, FTC, the U.S. Treasury and others being (in theory) independent agencies and not merely an autocratic extension of the President, the mainstream media simply republished the EO with little additional critical insight or commentary as to what this proclamation might actually deliver.
The EO was also routinely presented as being primarily (no pun intended) concerned with the secondary market, but many of the ‘unfair practices’ can be observed across the wider live concert and entertainment industry. And the stated concerns with antitrust practices, drip-pricing, the transparency of ticket distribution, and abuse of consumer protection have occurred within both ticketing sectors, and the recent primary-market application of dynamic pricing (‘surge-pricing’) by some artists with their promoters has led to urgent government investigations, accusations of malpractice and general opprobrium.
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The professionally contrarian Bob Lefsetz (Trump’s Ticketing Order, 31st March 2025 – https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2025/03/31/trumps-ticketing-order/) suggested it was ‘much ado about nothing’, and that whilst the U.S. government was being actively dismantled it was difficult to understand where the resources would be provided for market review, or new regulations and/or enforcement.
Conversely, Live Nation immediately announced support for the President Trump initiative (‘Live Nation Supports President Trump’s Executive Order On Resale’ – https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2025/03/live-nation-supports-president-trumps-executive-order-on-resale/), noting that ‘Ticketmaster stops over 200 million bots a day’ and then CEO Michael Rapino tweeted ‘Big thank you to President Trump for taking ticket scalping head-on which protects American consumers and artists. Scalpers and bots prevent fans from getting tickets at the prices artists set, which is why we support any meaningful resale reforms – including more enforcement of the BOTS Act, caps on resale prices, and more.’ (https://x.com/Michael_Rapino/status/1906842969078120667)
The British music industry news site Complete Music Update (CMU) less generously suggested that Live Nation’s focus on the secondary market aspect of the EO was sucking up to President Trump, in part to deflect attention from the ongoing FTC antitrust investigation into its own operations. (Live Nation sucks up to Trump after US president targets ticket scalpers, Chris Cooke, 1st April 2025 – https://completemusicupdate.com/live-nation-sucks-up-to-trump-after-us-president-targets-ticket-scalpers/)
Indeed, several observers and social media commentators suggested that the epitome of ‘unscrupulous middlemen’ charging ‘egregious fees’ was Live Nation – Ticketmaster. With some speculation that no populist politician would lose votes by advocating a split-up of LNE.
Additionally, as noted by Randy Nichols a leading music industry strategist (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/randynicholsny_trump-signs-order-targeting-ticket-scalpers-activity-7312639917149356032-MlaS), the FTC has now been instructed to produce a report on scalping, whilst Mark Meador who was recently nominated by President Trump to serve as a FTC commissioner was previously one of StubHub’s leading lobbyists – ‘Will he turn on his former client?’
Randy Nichols also suggested that the timing of the EO potentially ‘thrust a possibly fatal blow to StubHub IPO plans’ announced only days previously. (StubHub Files Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering, 21st March 2025 –https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stubhub-files-registration-statement-for-proposed-initial-public-offering-302408295.html).
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For further commentary regarding the StubHub IPO and other scribbles: Secondary #Ticket Marketplaces … And in other news (28.03.25) – https://tjchambers.blog/2025/03/28/secondary-ticket-marketplaces-and-in-other-news-28-03-25/)
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However, it was the announcement from the Rose Garden at the White House of ‘discounted reciprocal tariffs’ on 2nd April 2025 that proved to be more impactful to StubHub’s plans with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the ticketing marketplace was delaying its IPO (again) with the volatile stock markets in a freefall following the announcement of tariffs (Market Turmoil Delays StubHub’s IPO, Angel Au-Yeung + Corrie Driebusch, 4th April 2025 – https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-trade-war-stock-market-04-03-2025/card/market-turmoil-delays-stubhub-s-ipo-CdGkOUI0KBlFi4AZ8vQW)
As noted by the Financial Times ‘Trump’s bid to upend the international trading order with huge tariffs has wiped $5.4tn from US stocks in two days, as China hit back with its own levies, deepening fears of recession in the global economy’ (US stocks shed $5.4tn in two days as Trump’s tariffs stoke recession fears, Kate Duguid, 4th April 2025 – https://www.ft.com/content/b1eda0a8-6449-4fe5-b8c6-a2afebadc823).
And more specifically for the live music industry Billboard stated U.S. consumers and the music industry are facing higher vinyl prices, less tourism, foreign artists avoiding the U.S. and possible retaliation by other countries (Trump’s Tariffs Could Have Far-Reaching Effects on the U.S. Music Business, Gelnn Peoples, 4th April 2025 – https://www.billboard.com/pro/trump-tariffs-us-music-business-effects/).
So, another quiet week in ticketing.
Comments via the usual channels.
Until the next time.
TJ_Chambers 