Fans who purchased resale tickets to Hamilton in Baltimore will see some of their money back from Ticketmaster, after the ticketing giant reached a settlement with Maryland’s attorney general announced late last week. The settlement ends a lawsuit brought by Brian Frosh’s office against the California-based entertainment giant which alleged that service fees added to resale ticket prices at checkout violated the state’s consumer protection act.
The Live Nation-owned ticketing vendor denied it violated any Maryland laws, despite settling the case.
As part of the settlement, Ticketmaster will refund impacted customers who purchased tickets to the June 2019 run of the popular musical. It will also pay Frosh’s office $25,000 to cover its costs of prosecuting the case.
“We were able to resolve this matter so that consumers will get back fees that they should not have been charged,” said Frosh in a statement released Friday.
Ticketmaster has long been criticized for its use of “drip” pricing techniques, where consumers are shown one price up front, only to see numerous fees tacked on at the tail end of the transaction. In 2019, Ticketmaster settled with Canada’s Competition Bureau to the tune of $4.5 million for such pricing practices.
In this instance, Maryland’s case stemmed from the Hippodrome’s pricing structure, which recently changed to lump fees into the initial ticket price shown to consumers at purchase. Despite this change, Ticketmaster tacked fees as high as $31 per ticket to orders at checkout for resale customers, prompting the legal action.
Some 4,176 consumers are eligible for refunds of fees due to this settlement, and should see such refunds automatically.