Federal prosecutors accuse a San Diego-based entertainment company of using bots and other illegal means to scoop up millions of tickets to hot events such as concerts by Beyoncé, Post Malone, Pitbull and Luke Bryan, then reselling the tickets in bulk for a profit, often against the wishes of the artists.
In a 22-page lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained by rolling stonethe Justice Department alleges that REPS & Co circumvented ticket limits for at least 83,000 events, shelling out more than $1.3 billion for a staggering 18.5 million tickets to concerts, Broadway shows, college sports games and other popular events identified by software as being in high demand. The company then turned around and unloaded the tickets with markups on resale sites such as StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime and Ticketmaster’s own resale platform, reaping at least $120.8 million in profits, prosecutors allege.
The lawsuit alleges that for a single concert on Beyoncé’s stage Renaissance tour at Arrowhead Stadium in California on October 1, 2023, REPS used at least 1,300 accounts to purchase 7,624 tickets through Ticketmaster. The ticket purchase limit for that concert was between four and eight, prosecutors said, and REPS allegedly made a profit of about $833,323 by reselling those tickets.
For a September 7, 2024 Pitbull concert in Syracuse, New York, REPS allegedly used at least 700 accounts to purchase 5,430 tickets through Ticketmaster, according to prosecutors. The purchases represented nearly a third of the Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater’s capacity, and the company made a profit of about $120,109 by reselling the tickets, according to the lawsuit.
Attempts to reach a REPS spokesperson were not immediately successful Thursday. The lawsuit marks the latest crackdown under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, also known as the BOTS Act, which prohibits resellers from circumventing ticket limits through technology.
“The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable individuals and companies that drive up the price of event tickets by illegally exceeding ticket purchase limits and reselling illegally obtained tickets at exorbitant markups,” Assistant United States Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement. “Working alongside the FTC, we will continue to enforce the BOTS Act to protect consumers from such behavior.”
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