Mackenzie McClain Hill had purchased resale tickets through a resale site — $700 each — to see Brandy and Monica perform at the Kia Forum hoping for a rare night out with her mother. They were running late, but as they crossed the parking lot, they could hear the music already playing. Kelly Rowland had just begun her set.
That’s when Hill realized she couldn’t get into the concert.
Standing outside the venue in the cold, Hill tried to pull up the tickets she had purchased. Instead, she was prompted to download a different app — Ticketmaster’s — and enter a code sent earlier by email. The venue’s Wi-Fi was unreliable. Her phone struggled to authenticate an account she hadn’t used in years. Inside, the concert continued.
“It was panic,” Hill said. “You’re watching people walk past you into the venue, and you can hear the performance. And you’ve spent all this money.” Hill refreshed her screen again and again.
“It took about 20 minutes,” she said. “And the concert was happening.”
By the time the tickets finally loaded, Kelly Rowland’s opening set was over. The night she had planned with care and anticipation had unraveled into frustration.
What Hill did not realize was that even transactions completed through reputable concert ticket platforms operate within a broader system where Ticketmaster controls access at many venues. The issue was not the resale site itself, but the industry structure that allows one company to retain authority over ticket validation.
That distinction — between where tickets are purchased and who controls access — is central to how the live-events market now operates, according to antitrust experts.
Across the country, millions of people —like Hill—are discovering that buying a ticket no longer guarantees access. Even when consumers buy tickets through competing platforms, control over ticket delivery, entry, and verification often remains concentrated in the hands of a single company—Ticketmaster.
That distinction has become central to how the live-events market now operates, as across the country, people are discovering that buying a ticket no longer guarantees hassle-free entry and, in some cases, no access at all. Consumer complaints reviewed by federal regulators describe ticket holders locked out of events they paid for, unable to retrieve barcodes or complete transfers. Or season ticket holders who often complain about Ticketmaster when they can’t easily gift or resell unused seats due to platform restrictions, disabled features or technical glitches.
In many cases, customers report discovering — often too late as in the case of Hill — that the platform controlling entry was not the one they purchased from, and that resolving the issue required navigating multiple systems that don’t always communicate with one another.
“I was given a $350 gift card for Ticketmaster,” one consumer wrote in a federal complaint. “But Ticketmaster didn’t have tickets for sale anymore — everything was immediately resold. And you can’t use gift cards on resale.”
Another wrote: “I did everything right. I bought early. I followed the rules. And I still couldn’t get in.”
Pastor K.W. Tulloss experienced a different version of the same problem.
He had purchased a ticket to the same Brandy and Monica performance in Inglewood. When a second show was added later that week — one that better fit his schedule — he decided to sell his original ticket back through Ticketmaster.
“When I attempted to sell the ticket back, they lowballed me and offered me $100 less than I originally paid, even though the show was sold out and the ticket was still in demand,” Tulloss said. “So, I kept the ticket and went as I’d originally planned.”
Federal regulators say these complaints point to broader failures in how ticketing systems function — particularly for people balancing entertainment costs alongside rent, groceries and transportation.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, ticketing platforms often advertise prices that appear lower than what consumers ultimately pay. Mandatory fees — sometimes adding as much as 40 percent — often appear only at checkout. From 2019 to 2024, the FTC estimates that consumers paid more than $16 billion in such fees.
Federal filings also point to the role of large-scale ticket reselling. Brokers are often able to acquire large blocks of seats, which are then resold at steep markups. Between 2019 and 2024, Ticketmaster collected nearly $1 billion in resale-related fees.
As complaints mounted, California lawmakers began to intervene.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who chairs the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, delayed two major ticketing bills earlier this year to allow further negotiation among lawmakers, industry leaders and consumer advocates.
“We wanted to slow this down and make sure we were getting it right,” Wicks said. “This affects millions of people, and we need solutions that actually protect consumers.”
One proposal, Assembly Bill 1349, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan of Los Angeles, would impose stricter disclosure rules and limit certain resale practices.
“Too often, consumers don’t realize they’re buying from a secondary seller rather than the venue itself,” Bryan said. “This bill is about transparency and protecting people from deceptive practices.”
Bryan emphasized that his bill is aimed specifically at speculative ticket sales—instances in which tickets appear on resale platforms at inflated prices before the original tickets have even gone on sale. “That’s when a ticket set to go on sale this Friday for $35, for example, is already listed on the secondary market for $100 before the artist has released the tickets,” he explained.
“They buy the original tickets in bulk and resell them at a markup to consumers,” Bryan added. “I don’t have any issues with resale. If you bought a ticket, you should own that ticket and be able to do what you want with it.”
Still, the bill has drawn concern from some advocacy groups, who warn of unintended consequences that could ultimately strengthen the very companies lawmakers seek to regulate.
Organizations including the Consumer Federation of California and the California Black Chamber of Commerce caution that poorly designed reforms could further consolidate power among the largest players in the ticketing industry—particularly Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster. Some critics argue that, rather than curbing monopolistic practices, AB 1349 could inadvertently function as a gift to those dominant companies.
“Protecting fans from fraud is essential,” one coalition representative said. “But we can’t replace one form of control with another. That only shifts who gets locked out.”
Those concerns now sit at the center of a sweeping federal lawsuit. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice — joined by more than 30 states, including California — sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, accusing the companies of monopolizing the live entertainment industry.
Federal prosecutors argue that the companies dominate nearly every layer of the ecosystem: promotion, ticketing, resale and venue access. The result, they say, is a marketplace where competition is stifled and consumers have little choice.
Yet even critics acknowledge that dismantling Live Nation–Ticketmaster’s dominance is far from simple.
“When a dominant firm spans multiple parts of the market, exclusive contracts can quickly cross the line,” said Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, who told LA Focus. “Live Nation is dominant in concert promotion and venue management, and Ticketmaster is dominant in ticketing. That combination gives the company enormous leverage.”
Moss said exclusive agreements can carry an implicit threat: venues that refuse Ticketmaster’s services risk losing access to artists promoted by Live Nation. The result, she said, is a system that squeezes out smaller competitors and leaves consumers with fewer choices and higher fees.
“When there’s real competition, ticket fees are lower,” she said. “When there isn’t, consumers pay more — and they’re left with fewer options, less transparency and platforms that don’t have much incentive to improve.”
Some artists have pushed back, experimenting with price caps or alternative platforms. But for most major tours, Ticketmaster remains the gatekeeper. That structure also shapes how independent promoters operate.
“When pricing and fees become complicated across systems, it limits flexibility and erodes trust,” said Gary Guidry, CEO of the Black Promoters Collective. “Fans deserve clarity about what they’re paying for.”
To counter complaints and mounting scrutiny, Live Nation has said it plans to roll back certain practices, including shutting down Trade Desk, a tool critics say enabled large-scale ticket reselling. The company has also announced new safeguards intended to curb abuse and restore trust.
But for many fans, those assurances arrive long after the damage is done. Live entertainment carries emotional weight. Reunion tours and legacy acts draw audiences eager to reconnect with the music that once soundtracked their lives. They are milestones — birthdays, graduations, rare nights together. Moments meant to be remembered long after the lights dim and the music fades.
Setting aside his own experience, Tulloss—who pastors the Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church —says he has often heard the same frustrations from congregants who save for months to attend concerts, worship gatherings or community events.
“When people can’t get in — even after they’ve paid — it’s discouraging. Entertainment plays a role in mental health. It gives people something to look forward to.”
He added that confusion around digital access, hidden fees and platform barriers is a recurring source of stress for some.
“Not everyone has special access or insider knowledge,” he said. “People shouldn’t have to fight their way into something they already paid for.”
At its core, the debate over ticketing is not just about concerts. It’s about control — who has it, and who doesn’t, and when access to culture, sports and shared experiences is mediated by a handful of corporations, even small technical failures carry outsized consequences. For fans caught between platforms, policies and profit models, the cost is no longer just financial. It’s emotional. It’s social. It’s the loss of moments they can’t get back.
As regulators and courts debated what accountability might look like, power continued to move quietly behind the scenes.
In early December, President Donald Trump issued a full pardon to Tim Leiweke, the former CEO of venue development company Oak View Group, who had faced federal charges tied to a $375 million arena project in Texas — a case brought by the Justice Department under the Biden administration and described by prosecutors as central to understanding how influence operates inside the live-events industry.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Leiweke had been expected to play a key role in the Justice Department’s broader antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster — an effort aimed at examining how the company maintains its dominance over concerts, sports and live entertainment nationwide.
The pardon came after Trump was approached by allies following a round of golf, the Journal reported, removing one of the government’s most significant leverage points in its attempt to challenge the industry’s power structure.
At the same time, Live Nation has taken steps to deepen its political ties. The company recently added Richard Grenell — a longtime Trump ally — to its board of directors and hired former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway as a consultant, moves widely seen as efforts to insulate the company from future regulatory pressure.
For critics, those moves underscore how difficult meaningful accountability can be.
“This is what accountability looks like when power protects itself,” said one consumer advocate familiar with the federal case. “The public is told help is coming, but the people with the most influence keep finding ways to walk away.”
Millions of Americans purchase event tickets through Ticketmaster and Live Nation each year. By late 2025, Live Nation alone had welcomed more than 150 million fans to its shows worldwide, selling hundreds of millions of tickets, with U.S. online sales dominated by Ticketmaster and resellers such as StubHub and SeatGeek. For many fans, however, what may begin as a night meant for joy — a chance to relive music that is the soundtracks of their lives — could well become a lesson in control and what little consumers have of it once they click “buy.”
When that happens, the question for fans is no longer whether something went wrong — but whether anyone in power is willing to fix it.