Moreover being American icons, chart toppers and stadium packers, what do Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen have in widespread?
Properly, with the spectacular songwriter factor apart, each the Boss and the self-styled Showgirl are on the coronary heart of a brand new Donald Trump fueled lawsuit by the Federal Commerce Fee immediately to place the kibosh on resale schemes to snare scorching tickets and rip off determined followers.
Starting on or round October 2016 to the current, Defendants have used unlawful means to buy lots of of hundreds of tickets from Ticketmaster for performances and occasions, together with live shows, performs, and sporting occasions,” the FTC sang loud in an injunction and penalties searching for criticism in opposition to Baltimore-based Key Funding Group, its associates and execs over lots of of hundreds of tickets scoped up by bots, false Ticketmaster accounts and different digitally underhanded means. “Defendants’ purchases have repeatedly exceeded posted ticket buying limits to many well-liked occasions, similar to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour,” the Andrew N. Ferguson-led authorities company stated.
“Between November 1, 2022, and December 30, 2023, Defendants bought a minimum of 379,776 tickets from Ticketmaster at a price of almost $57,000,000. Defendants resold a portion of these tickets on secondary marketplaces for roughly $64,000,000, usually charging a major markup to shoppers.”
Now, to hark to one of many tune titles on celebrity Swift’s upcoming The Lifetime of Showgirl album, that’s actually the way you damage a friendship.
Following up on Trump’s very retail politics Government Order of this spring aiming to crackdown on live performance reselling scams, the FTC obtained very particular of their submitting in federal courtroom Monday with Swift and her report breaking worldwide SRO 149 present Eras excursions, that got here to an finish in Vancouver final December.
From March 24, 2023, by August 20, 2023, Defendants bought ten or extra tickets to every of 38 Taylor Swift live shows for a complete of two,280 tickets. Defendants paid $744,970.29 for these tickets and resold them for $1,961,980.65, netting $1,217,010.36 in income. To offer an instance from only one Taylor Swift live performance, Defendants used 49 totally different accounts to buy 273 tickets to Taylor Swift’s March 25, 2023, live performance at Allegiant Stadium, dramatically exceeding The Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket restrict. Defendants then marked up and resold these tickets, netting $119,227.21 in income.
The numbers have been smaller for Springsteen, however the margins have been nonetheless fairly massive.
For a Bruce Springsteen present at MetLife Stadium on September 1, 2023, Defendants used 277 totally different accounts to buy 1,530 tickets, dramatically exceeding Springsteen and the E Road Band’s four-ticket restrict. Defendants marked up and resold these tickets, netting $20,900.84 in income.
Bruce Springsteen performing in Manchester, UK on Could 15, 2025 (Credit score: Getty)
Photograph by Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Photographs
Reps for Swift and Springsteen unsurprisingly didn’t reply to Deadline’s request for touch upon the FTC submitting their purchasers are throughout. Whereas not a defendant on this matter, although nonetheless apparently beneath probe from the FTC, Ticketmaster can be all around the criticism – because the hardly ever enforced Higher On-line Ticket Gross sales Act of 2016.
Which is probably why FTC Chairman Ferguson appeared to be punching up in a boss (not Bruce) praising assertion of his personal Monday. “Immediately’s motion places brokers on discover that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers’ buy limits, making certain that customers have a possibility to purchase tickets at honest costs,” the ex-Virginia solicitor basic added.
Now everyone knows, Trump has had his share of pity events and unseemly rages about each Springsteen and Swift over the past 12 months or so (and earlier than, fact be advised), however the factor is that this case really isn’t a lot of a fence mending train for the singers and POTUS.
It was really began beneath Joe Biden’s administration.
Supported by Swift and Springsteen in his 2020 White Home bid and, till he dropped out beneath duress, his 2024 reelection marketing campaign Biden — together with 30 state and district attorneys basic, based on the DOJ — additionally went after Ticketmaster and dad or mum firm Dwell Nation in early 2024 in a civil antitrust go well with. That competitors stifling motion is ongoing, although as lately as final month Ticketmaster and Dwell Nation hit again in a countersuit to close the investigation down and refute the Higher On-line Ticket Gross sales Act violation claims.
Ahh, glory days.
