“The real enemy in the room is Live Nation” for excess ticket fees
Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s rising ticket prices are exempt from Healey’s “Great Divide Act”
Boston, Mass. – The Dropkick Murphys’ lead singer Ken Casey called Live Nation the “real enemy in the room” and called on Gov. Maura Healey to address their anti-fan tactics. Casey and Healey discussed the bill during an interview on GBH News’ “Boston Public Radio” on Wednesday. Healey’s “Great Divide Act” exempts Ticketmaster’s box office ticketing (primary ticketing) from the bill’s price controls, which in the current bill would apply to resale only, leaving unchecked the pricing schemes of the illegal monopoly that dominates roughly 90% of ticket sales in Massachusetts.
“We agree with Ken Casey, the illegal monopoly Live Nation-Ticketmaster is the real enemy to Massachusetts fans” said Brian Berry, Executive Director of Ticket Policy Forum. “Unfortunately, Gov. Maura Healey’s bill will not result in lower cost tickets because it gives the largest seller of tickets in the state, the Ticketmaster box office, a free pass to continue to dynamically price tickets higher. Resale ticketing represents a small fraction of overall ticket sales. After all the hard work of the state Attorney General to help find Live Nation-Ticketmaster guilty of operating an illegal monopoly, this Ticketmaster handout could put the benefits of a future Live Nation-Ticketmaster break-up at risk for the Massachusetts live event market and fans.”
Key points about Governor Healey’s “Great Divide Act”
- Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said in 2025 that tickets are “underpriced.”
- Ticket prices are up more than 120 percent since Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010
- For most events, fans have a choice between the box office or resale marketplaces when they buy tickets. Instant sell-outs where tickets can no longer be purchased direct from the box office are a rare occurrence, as according to Live Nation only 2% of their events sell-out.
- Resale helps bring down the cost of tickets for fans — it just happened last month with BTS at Gillette Stadium, where resale tickets went for as low as $8 while Ticketmaster charged more than $135.
- In the interview on Boston Public Radio, Gov. Healey discusses the frustrating fan experience of being stuck in a queue, waiting, and finding that no tickets are available – an experience that happens on sites operated by Live Nation and Ticketmaster and remains untouched by the “Great Divide Act.”
- Earlier this year, a federal jury found Ticketmaster and Live Nation were operating an illegal monopoly that hurt fans, artists, and venues.
- Ticket Policy Forum’s statement when Governor Healey introduced the Great Divide Act can be found here.
A full transcript of the interview is included below:
GBH News’ JIM BRAUDE: We want to ask you, speaking of saving money, about your effort to cap ticket resale prices. And there was this guy walking down the street who said he wanted to participate in the discussion. So we invited him to join us for a second. I’m sorry your name is, what sir, again, who are you? Joe Schmoe.
He has a lot of interest in this. He does know how to work on mic apparently. This happens to be Ken Casey from the Dropkick Murphys. So we only have a couple of minutes. What are you doing? What’s this bill going to do and how do you feel about it, Ken Casey? What’s it going to do quickly?
DROPKICK MURPHYS’ KEN CASEY: Yeah, so if you can, a ticket that’s scalped – sold in the second-hand market can only be sold for 10% over the ticket price. I’ll tell you why that means a lot. The music industry is getting destroyed by all the additional costs. I’ll tell you why it affects Dropkick Murphys a lot, is if you’re an artist that sells a ticket for $300, there’s only so much of a mock up that people are willing to pay. You know, you’re not going to probably, in a normal instance, be able to mock that up 100%. Dropkick Murphys – who sells a ticket for $49 – we’re the scalper’s dream because they can take that ticket and sell it for 250 in profit. So the thought that people can only mark up our ticket for $5 is great, you know. It’s nice to see a bill finally be putting forward that addresses this.
Now, I gotta say the real enemy in the room – and that’s great, that’s a great first step – the real enemy in the room is Live Nation, if you ask me. Because our $49 ticket, by the time you check out, just in ticketing fees and convenience fees and all that, is sometimes an additional $20 themselves. So we got to cap them next.
GOV. MAURA HEALEY: Well, first of all, we love Ken Casey and the Dropkick Murphys, and it’s awesome to see you. I filed a bill and supported a bill filed by Senator Fernandes because – for me and you’re speaking from a musician perspective and a fan perspective, which is so important – I just think about the people who you know, you try so hard to get a ticket to something. You save up, you’re waiting, you go online. It’s like you’re there eight hours, you’re just refreshing, refreshing, and you’re hosed. You can’t get in, and so. The legislation would open up more opportunity for people to be able to see great artists like Dropkick Murphys and others. Noah Kahan was here in the summer and you know he’s been very supportive of this effort as well to make tickets more accessible to folks, and that’s what I support. That’s what I filed. That’s what I’m advocating for.
We need to do more in this space and we need to lower not just the service charges and the fees, and you know you raise an important point about others in this space. We also need to ban something called speculative tickets. We saw this with World Cup, I mean people bought tickets, and then they showed up at the stadium and those tickets weren’t real. I mean that should be totally, totally criminal. So there’s work we got to do, but for me it’s about making sure that people have better access and a better shot at being able, you know to take their kids and others to see great artists.
About Ticket Policy Forum:
The Ticket Policy Forum (TPF) represents America’s leading online ticket marketplaces, including StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, TickPick, Gametime, and Events Ticket Center. TPF member companies serve tens of millions of fans every year by providing secure, guaranteed transactions, fraud prevention, and customer support that protect buyers and sellers.
TPF member marketplaces are the companies seeking to disrupt the Ticketmaster monopoly and, importantly, some TPF members are not just resale platforms. Several of them seek to challenge the status quo in so-called primary ticketing and are working directly with teams, venues, and promoters to give fans better access, better technology and user experiences, and expanded choice for ticketing distribution partners. Recently, for example, one of our members announced a ticket distribution service to small independent venues where they can offer their tickets – at prices set by the venue – on the marketplace in an effort to reach more consumers and help sell more tickets and fill more seats. This represents the type of innovation at work in our industry to connect fans with the events they love, and to help events sell out and ensure no seat goes empty.