The law firm Gordon Legal is investigating Ticketmaster and its promoter Live Nation, with the potential that a lawsuit could be launched against the ticketing giants.
James Naughton partner of Gordon Legal said multiple people had contacted his firm with concerns about Live Nation’s dynamic pricing and their ticketing model.
“People feel like they don’t get … any idea about what the price of the tickets are until they go into a queue, which can take a significant amount of time to wait in,” he said. “And then they’re given a very short period of time to decide whether to purchase the ticket or not.”
It comes on the back of a Four Corners story which revealed that the company has been charging fans hidden fees.
A Four Corners report presented a $65 ticket which ended up costing over $75 after hidden service, booking and transaction fees were accounted for. In other cases patrons are said to have paid a whopping $30-$40 on top of the original ticket prices.
Paul Sloan who is one of Australia’s top booking agents highlighted the major changes with ticketing fees in recent times.
“There’s about 10 different fees now, all with different names,” he said. “I used to run a ticket business with one simple fee, and we still made money.”
In response to the controversy, Live Nation defended their processes to The Music Network in a statement that said: “Ticketmaster does not set prices, nor do we have or offer algorithmic surge pricing technologies.”
“Ticket prices need to compensate touring artists and ensure that Australia continues to attract many of the world’s most popular artists.”
Live Nation also claimed that the Four Corners story was “inaccurate” and “unbalanced”.
“Despite our best efforts to engage with Four Corners and present them with facts about the live entertainment industry, the promotional video contains a range of falsehoods and unsubstantiated allegations,” the statement said.
The ABC reports that law firm Gordon Legal will consider taking Live Nation and Ticketmaster to court in the coming weeks.
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