New Jersey Officials Acquired Exclusive Seats During Ticketmaster Lawsuit

On May 5, 2009, the New Jersey state government filed a class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster and TicketsNow.com for marking up the price of tickets through a secondary-market model (AKA: hired scalpers). Now, records have leaked showing that, under former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, the state office routinely reserved exclusive tickets the public couldn’t purchase. As though that weren’t humiliating enough, records show that a block of the tickets were for a Jonas Brothers concert.

The prosecution’s argument goes something like this: Ticketmaster and TicketsNow.com are two different sites. Ticketmaster holds a near-monopoly over ticket sales for many shows and sporting events, and a near-unshakeable one at that after their recent merger with Live Nation. Often, an event will sell out minutes after tickets go on sale, and Ticketmaster will then direct buyers to TicketsNow.com, which is a re-sale venue, offering tickets for much higher prices than their original value. However, the site is set up so that customers don’t realize they’ve been re-located to an external site. According to the case’s prosecutors, this process intentionally deceives customers and is a violation “of the consumer protection and common laws.”

However, records produced in the case are now showing that the governor’s office went through the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority to get tickets the public could not access for sports and musical events, including 57 tickets for U2, Bruce Springsteen and Jonas Brothers concerts from July-October 2009. This exclusivity may undermine the State’s argument for fair ticket pricing and access.

According to New Jersey Real Time News, sports authority spokesman John Samerjan said holding tickets for VIP “house seats” is “standard industry practice.” He also said that recipients pay only face value, and aren’t given any kind of discount.

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