TicketMaster has had a devastating impact on fans across America who are already struggling with rising costs and financial challenges. FFC believes it is time for Congress to uphold the principles of fairness and competition by doing something about it. With control of over an estimated 70% of the live event ticketing market, TicketMaster’s impact on the live event ticketing industry can’t be overstated. It was time to start putting control back in the hands of fans.

FFC’s objectives were to connect with fans using the medium they love and strive to protect: music itself. Collaborating with music producers, they sought to bring the issue directly to fans in language (and lyrics) they understand, driving urgency--and no small amount of anger--onto the issue to get fans to contact their lawmakers.

To break up the real monopoly, we created a fictional band called “The Monopoly”. The band embodied everything evil about Ticketmaster: selfishness, arrogance, greed, and complete disregard for the fans.

We worked with TikTok Influencers to introduce our band to major fanbases on TikTok, such as Swifties, BTS Army, and The Stylers. We launched an album with original songs like "Puppet Fan," and "Ticket Servant," each with its own music video as well as a mockumentary that narrated the band's evil story.

Each TikTok video ended with a call to “Break Up The Monopoly”, with a direct link to send an email to Congress.

Buying tickets to a concert has become a nightmare. Tickets cost thousands of dollars, fans have to wait online for hours, and then the site crashes. The Taylor Swift ticket fiasco is the best example, yielding widespread condemnation from fans--and Taylor herself. The strategy behind this campaign mixed fan rage on TikTok with their love for new bands and music while harnessing their passion for political action, inspiring them to contact their senator to disband this illegal monopoly.

Thanks to a summer of a pending investigation and millions of disgruntled would-be Eras Tour attendees, all campaign content across all platforms combined saw 30M views and counting, which includes TikTok and YouTube, with 38M total media impressions.

The message was working: by January 2024, over 72,000 letters from music enthusiasts had been forwarded through the Fan Fairness Coalition to Members of Congress in the United States. Shortly thereafter, in February 2024, the DOJ launched an antitrust probe against Live Nation, whom prosecutors publicly deemed “uncooperative” (Bloomberg). As of April 15, 2024, the government had finally had enough, and the Justice Department stated its intention to file an antitrust suit against Live Nation.