Randy Nichols’ Public Comment To DOJ & FTC On ‘Unfair and Anticompetitive Practices in the Live Ticketing Industry’ (Guest Post)

Last week, the United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission officially began a public inquiry into “unfair and anticompetitive practices and conduct in the live concert and entertainment industry”. The agencies want consumer input into “harmful practices and on potential regulation or legislation to protect consumers in the industry.”

The probe is the result of President Donald Trump’s executive order in March that, among other things, directed the DOJ and FTC to “ensure that competition laws are appropriately enforced in the concert and entertainment industry.” It also called on the FTC to “rigorously” enforce the BOTS Act, which, to date, has only resulted in one conviction since it became law in 2017. The EO also called for the DOJ, FTC and Department of the Treasury to prepare a report with “recommendations for regulations or legislation necessary to protect consumers.”

A critical part of any public inquiry is input from stakeholders. Randy Nichols, a board member of the National Independent Talent Agency and CEO of Fly South Music/Force Media Management, has been monitoring the ticketing industry and its inefficiencies and shortcomings for years. Here, he shares the comments he wrote to the two agencies as part of the inquiry.

To Whom It May Concern,

Thank you for inviting me to participate in last month’s Live Entertainment Market roundtable led by Assistant Attorney General [For The Antitrust Division] Gail Slater. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss these issues in person and contribute to the dialogue surrounding enforcement and reform efforts in the live ticketing industry.

I am writing to formally submit my public comment regarding the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s inquiry into unfair and anticompetitive practices in the live ticketing industry, as requested under Executive Order 14254. I deeply appreciate the agencies’ commitment to addressing the growing harms in the live entertainment market caused by scalpers, automated bots, deceptive practices, and structural failures in the ticketing ecosystem.

Through extensive research into ticket scalping and the secondary market, I have identified widespread structural issues that have distorted this industry, leaving both artists and consumers at a significant disadvantage. The manipulation of inventory, unchecked speculative listings, and aggressive affiliate networks have created a system where fairness is neither expected nor delivered.

Among the most troubling findings:

• Automated bots and browser-based tools continue to evade detection, rapidly purchasing large volumes of tickets during onsales, only to flip them at inflated prices on secondary marketplaces. These tools include browser plugins that allow scalpers to cut ahead in online queues, autofill billing details at lightning speed, and dynamically generate credit card numbers and aliases to bypass per-person ticket limits imposed by artists and promoters. These programs operate at a speed and scale far beyond what a human buyer could match, effectively locking real fans out of the purchase process.
• Speculative ticket listings, where sellers offer tickets they do not yet own, deceive consumers and artificially drive demand. These sellers frequently list tickets at high prices even before they are available to the general public, using advanced computer models to identify the best time to buy low and fulfill those orders. In essence, they behave like unregulated equities traders who are shorting tickets—manipulating the market without accountability.
• Deceptive URLs and branding, often designed to appear as official box offices or artist-endorsed sites, mislead consumers into believing they are purchasing tickets directly from a trusted source. These lookalike domains use venue names, city references, or tour branding in the URL to rank highly in search results and confuse buyers. Companies behind these schemes, including ATBS (owned by TFL), Ticketwebsite, and TicketWP, exploit fans’ trust to drive high-priced speculative ticket sales. Major secondary platforms such as TicketNetwork and Evolution maintain affiliate relationships with these operators, enabling the practice while minimizing direct exposure.
• Loans used to finance bulk ticket purchases by scalpers have become a major driver of resale market inflation. Around $100 million is lent annually to ticket brokers to acquire inventory before fans even have a fair chance to buy tickets at face value. Notably, Don Vaccaro, the CEO of TicketNetwork, is also the CEO of RCN Capital, a real estate lending firm that offers ticket financing by offering unsecured and secured loans to scalpers to purchase tickets. Similarly, Anytickets advertises a $40 million line of credit from Bank of America, promoting their ability to fund high-volume ticket purchases with “minimal paperwork,” “fast funding within 24 hours,” and “bad credit OK.” These financing pipelines weaponize liquidity against fans, empowering well-funded scalpers to outcompete everyday consumers during onsales.

Additionally, secondary ticket marketplaces like StubHub and Vivid Seats spend millions of dollars annually on lobbying efforts to conflate the issue of Ticketmaster’s market dominance with the broader problems in ticketing. They position themselves as competitors, when in reality they are profiteering off the same system—exploiting fans, artists, and promoters alike. Breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster may address competition concerns in the concert promotion industry, but it will do nothing to solve the escalating damage caused by the multi-billion dollar private equity backed scalping problem. These are two separate and urgent issues and must be addressed as such, with independent scrutiny and enforcement paths.

Artists are increasingly forced to navigate a system that exploits their work and alienates their fans, while independent venues and promoters struggle to compete.

To restore fairness and competitive balance, I urge the Department of Justice and FTC to consider the following recommendations:

1. Enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act with aggressive investigations and meaningful penalties for violators.
2. Ban speculative ticketing (including concierge services) and deceptive URLs.
3. Establish a national standard requiring disclosure of original face value on resale tickets to allow consumers to make informed choices.
4. Investigate bank loans and financial services that enable large-scale ticket scalping to better understand how this capital is deployed—and whether it is actively undermining artist protections and consumer access. Greater transparency in this area is essential to exposing a major yet often overlooked driver of the ticketing crisis.

I commend the DOJ and FTC for opening this inquiry and hope this will be the beginning of a concerted effort to restore integrity to the live entertainment marketplace. I would welcome the opportunity to share additional data and insights gathered in my research and advocacy efforts.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Randy Nichols
Board Member, National Independent Talent Organization
CEO, Fly South Music /Force Media Management