Just recently, you must have heard a lot about how Ticketmaster was caught fooling its customers or those who were really excited to book the last-minute tickets. It turns out, Ticketmaster wasn’t showing high prices at the end of the checkout process right here in the United States; it was doing the same in Canada as well. So there are multiple cases going against them, though the Ticketmaster Settlement has come only in the Canadian case. So let’s talk about it all for a sec here. And surely, we’ll discuss the U.S. cases as well, just so you know about this whole thing in a better way.
The Canadian Settlement (2018-2025)
First, let’s talk about the case that got settled first, and that was the Canadian case. Going a little bit into the backstory of this case, see, back just in 2018, an action was initiated against Ticketmaster and Live Nation for the practice of hiding fees during online ticket sales. Looking at other cases going on against them right here in the United States, that doesn’t sound too shocking, does it? The customers brought the case on the grounds that the price was shown to them only the additional charges were displayed at the very last checkout stage. That’s big similarity right there.
Not a single doubt in the fact the case stated that such a practice went against Canadian consumer protection laws. And sure enough, the lawsuit was formally resolved in early 2025 after several years. The point to note here is that even after all this, Ticketmaster didn’t accept that they were in the wrong, but just not to drag this case even further, they agreed to pay around $6 million as the settlement money.
Here’s what eligible customers received:
- Canadians (excluding Quebec) who bought tickets through Ticketmaster for Canadian events
- Purchases made between January 1, 2018, and June 30, 2018
- Eligible users could claim credit vouchers up to $45 CAD
- Credits were sent by email around August 2025 and do not expire
It is true that the people impacted by all this didn’t get the cash payout, but surely was something of use.
The U.S. Lawsuits: Monopoly and Hidden Fee Claims (2022-2025)
Sure, this case began a bit late, like in 2022, compared to the Canadian case, but still, here as well, you’ll find a lot of similarities. Like, within this, the majority of these lawsuits are centered around Ticketmaster’s dominance in the market following its merger with Live Nation in 2010.
1. The Skot Heckman Class Action Lawsuit
Again, this one is specifically filed in California, and it was just filed back in January 2022, where the plaintiff is alleging clearly that Ticketmaster is a monopoly. And that’s how it is exploiting the particular market segment, which is wrong in every sense.
The allegations include:
- Forcing venues into exclusive contracts
- Giving preferred access to select resellers
- Charging service fees that increase ticket prices by 20% to 80%
As of late 2025, well, this lawsuit is popular enough and has been approved as a class action one. So sure enough, more and more people can join in.
2. Drip Pricing and Consumer Protection Lawsuits
And then there are many lawsuits that claim “drip pricing” as their main allegation, which means that the additional charges are only revealed at the very last stage of the checkout, and this is pretty similar to the Canadian case we talked about earlier. This quite literally became a big issue and even the mainstream media talked about it for days on end. Even back in September 2025, we saw the FTC taking a formal action against them.