Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has agreed to pay $9.9 million to resolve a Washington, D.C. consumer protection investigation into deceptive ticket pricing practices that spanned at least a decade, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced Monday.

Of that total, up to $8.9 million will be refunded to Live Nation customers. The attorney general's office said it will announce the details of a claims process in the coming months.

The investigation found that from 2015 until May 2025, Live Nation advertised artificially low ticket prices and disclosed mandatory fees only at checkout โ€” after consumers had already spent time selecting tickets. The company also failed to adequately explain the nature and purpose of the fees it charged, according to the attorney general's office. Pressure tactics were also part of the complaint: a countdown timer and pop-up alerts gave consumers the misleading impression that seats were about to sell out. Schwalb noted that the platform would surface the phrase "Tickets are selling fast. Get yours now before they're gone" whenever a user went idle for sixty seconds or more, even when genuine demand for the event did not warrant such a warning.

"For at least a decade, Live Nation and Ticketmaster boosted profits by charging predatory, hidden fees," Schwalb said in a statement. "With this settlement, we're putting millions of dollars back into the pockets of DC fans and ensuring that the price fans see when they first start shopping for tickets is the price they actually pay."

Under the settlement terms, Live Nation must display the full ticket price โ€” including all mandatory fees, minus taxes โ€” on the ticket selection page and throughout the purchase process on its website and apps. The company must also provide additional disclosures about the purpose of its fees and how they are distributed among parties involved in staging a live event. It must further update its inactivity notice to more accurately describe how the ticket-hold process works.

Live Nation has already made changes to its platform in response to the investigation and to a Federal Trade Commission rule on unfair and deceptive fees, the attorney general's office said.

The settlement resolves a consumer protection matter that is separate from the attorney general's ongoing antitrust case against Live Nation, which alleges the company illegally monopolized the live entertainment industry. According to Billboard, a judge in that case is weighing penalties that could include a potential sale of Ticketmaster.

The crackdown on opaque ticketing fees extends beyond Live Nation. According to Billboard, StubHub reached a $10 million agreement with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month after regulators accused the resale platform of knowingly and temporarily flouting newly enacted federal all-in pricing requirements.