Ticket Companies Told Biden They’d Stop Hiding Fees. One Company’s Already Skirting That Promise

SeatGeek made national news on Thursday when alongside Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the ticket reseller had announced with President Joe Biden at the White House that it would adopt an all-in pricing strategy to be more transparent with fans and stop hiding fees until the end of a purchase. Critics, however, are skeptical, noting that the company already isn’t using all-in prices even when legally required. 

Last year, New York passed a significant piece of legislation around the ticketing business, requiring companies to show all their fees upfront and to disclose the original face value of a ticket when it’s being resold. As Rolling Stone has previously reported, nearly all of the biggest ticket resale companies have skirted those laws in ways that at minimum go against what the spirit of the law intended and at worst outright breaks it. 

In SeatGeek’s case, its “all-in” prices in New York aren’t actually showing the full ticket price plus fees immediately. When shopping for a ticket, users on the site will initially see fee-less listings for tickets all over the venue map. It’s not until they actually click on their desired seats that a ticket buyer sees what they’re really going to pay. For instance, as of publication, the cheapest tickets for Drake and 21 Savage’s upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden shows seats in the upper deck for $241 each. It’s only after clicking that customers see the actual price of $328 each, $87 more than initially advertised. The cheapest tickets for Thomas Rhett’s upcoming concert at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo are initially listed at $24 each, but they rise to $40 after they’re selected.

In an initial statement to Rolling Stone on Thursday following the White House announcement, SeatGeek said it hoped the all-in initiative “sets a positive example for more action to come,” further noting that “fans want to understand the full cost of their purchase, with no deception or surprises along the way.”

When asked about the company’s current ticketing policy in New York and the critiques that it isn’t transparent, a SeatGeek spokesperson defended the company’s system and its legality.

“We believe yesterday’s commitment gives fans even more transparency in the shopping process,” the spokesperson says in a statement. “Even before this announcement, fans shopping on SeatGeek had, and still do have, the choice to see prices, including fees, before selecting their seat. With respect to New York law, we feel confident about our implementation and continue to support all-in pricing legislation at the state and federal level.”

New York State Senator James Skoufis, who sponsored the local bill, has expressed frustration with how he claims ticketing companies have skirted the law. He says he raised the issue with the New York Attorney General’s office several months after the law first took affect and says the office is “actively engaged in the issue.”

“It’s problematic; it’s quite frankly a reflection of the bad actors that exist in this industry,” Skoufis says. “And I think they should be ashamed of themselves. My hope is that the attorney general drops the hammer on them for breaking the law and illegally trying to gain an unfair advantage.”

Ticketing companies have long said that all-in ticketing policies could only work in the industry if everyone embraces them. Those who use all-in pricing are at a disadvantage to those who don’t given that customers will see companies with hidden fees as cheaper at first. StubHub tried going all-in several years ago, only to walk back the policy after their sales slowed. SeatGeek isn’t the only resale company Skoufis has said has violated New York’s law. Fellow prominent resale companies VividSeats and StubHub similarly don’t show fees until users click on seats.

Skoufis and two other sources tell Rolling Stone that the New York Attorney General’s office has been in touch with the ticketing marketplaces regarding the issue. The Attorney General’s office declined to comment.

Brett Goldberg, CEO of ticket resale site TickPick, alluded to the compliance issues during the industry meeting with Biden on Thursday, with SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger also in the room. Goldberg, whose company has displayed all-in ticket prices for years, didn’t mention any specific company or how they handled all-in pricing in New York, stating only broadly that some of TickPick’s competitors weren’t following suit.

“It wasn’t a jab at them, but considering that they are in the room with the president and trying to push all-in pricing with us, you’d think that process in New York would be different,” Goldberg says. “New York is still working through this, and we’re nine months past when it got approved. [New York] is still trying to move it through to the point of, ‘how do you enforce this?’ The legislation goes out, people find some lawyers who can interpret the language and say, ‘this is good enough.’ If you can’t get all-in pricing right, which is the easiest thing, you can’t imagine you’re going to get some of these more complicated nuanced issues done right.”

Goldberg also called SeatGeek’s commitment despite their current policy “incredibly frustrating.” “Unfortunately in this industry, you expect the worst, and that’s what the consumer expects as well,” he says. “It’s the truth: you should expect the worst of these companies, that they’re going to do what’s best for their bottom line, not what’s best for the consumer.”

Both Goldberg and Skoufis did say the commitments are a positive step forward in creating a more transparent ticketing marketplace and hope it’s a sign of more changes ahead. “It doesn’t excuse what they’re doing, even if SeatGeek did [their New York policy] in 49 other states, it’d still be an improvement.” But that’s perhaps as much a damnation of the current ticketing ecosystem as it is a sign of anything better.

“[The commitment] is not meaningless,” Skoufis says, “but does it espouse a high level of confidence given the context we’re talking about, no it doesn’t.”