The US FTC proposes a rule to require ticket sellers and others to show the total price to users upfront; Ticketmaster and SeatGeek have pledged all-in pricing
Including ‘Hidden Mandatory Fees’ for Concert Tickets NBC News : FTC announces proposed rule to ban ‘junk fees’ X: Lina Khan / @linakhanftc : 1. Junk fees cheat American families out of tens of billions of dollars and stack the deck against honest businesses. Today @FTC is proposing a rule that would ban these junk fees. https://www.ftc.gov/... Lina Khan / @linakhanftc : 3. We received over 12k comments on people's experience with junk fees. People shared how they routinely encounter these bait-and-switch tactics—where firms initially show one price, but then add all sorts of unexpected fees that inflate the overall cost. https://www.regulations.gov/ ... LinkedIn: John W. McCarthy : Today the President is continuing to take on big special interests and lower costs for hardworking families by cracking down on unfair, hidden junk fees. … Forums: r/politics : FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Junk Fees
Context & Ripple Effects
The proposal follows a [[a:1156774|White House-backed commitment by Live Nation and Ticketmaster to introduce all-in ticket pricing]], placing voluntary platform changes alongside a potential economy-wide FTC standard.
Related coverage later records the proposal becoming final FTC rules for upfront price display, making this an early step in the shift from industry pledges to enforceable disclosure requirements.
First-order effects
- Ticket sellers and other covered businesses would need to present the total price upfront if the proposed rule is adopted, limiting the use of mandatory charges revealed late in checkout.
- Ticketmaster and SeatGeek's all-in-pricing pledges position them to align with the proposed standard, while making displayed ticket prices more directly comparable for buyers.
Second-order effects
- Competitors that still advertise lower entry prices before adding mandatory fees would face pressure to change their checkout and marketing flows, even before a final rule takes effect.
- Upfront pricing can shift competition toward the underlying ticket price and service charge level, rather than how fees are presented; that is the core tension in a later Ticketmaster move to show full prices upfront.
Third-order effects
- If applied consistently across ticketing and other covered categories, mandatory total-price disclosure could constrain a platform's ability to use fee presentation as a pricing lever and make fee structures a more visible regulatory issue.
- The proposal points to a broader model in which consumer-facing platforms' take rates are judged not only by size but by disclosure, with enforcement determining whether voluntary commitments become durable market practice.
The trend: Consumer-protection policy is moving platform pricing toward standardized all-in disclosures and closer scrutiny of mandatory fees.