NIVA Pushes “False Information” to Help Live Nation, StubHub Claims

The National Independent Venue Association's (NIVA) efforts to portray ticket resale as a complete scam due to the release of tickets for the Oasis tour dates in North America ahead of Friday's pre-sale are not only inaccurate – but also indicate a coordinated effort by Live from Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster, according to StubHub.

“It is clear that Live Nation Entertainment – ​​Ticketmaster and the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) have partnered to spread false information about ticket availability in order to further their own political agenda and incite distrust in the secondary market.” says Laura Dooley from StubHub. Global Head of Government Relations.

An October 2 letter from the lobbying organization to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation accused StubHub and Vivid Seats of “deceiving fans” as “at least 9,000 counterfeit tickets” had already been put up for sale at the US Oasis -Shows. Tickets may not be available for sale, the letter said, indicating that any resale offers are fraudulent and misleading.

As a result, the letter says, Congress must take action against ticket resales by holding a committee hearing upon its return from recess in November and then passing the Fans First Act — the NIVA as part of the broader one “Fix The Tix” campaign was supported by “Coalition.

However, the conclusion that there were no tickets available to be offered on resale platforms prior to the first public pre-sale following the publication of the letter is demonstrably false. As usual, pre-sales for small, non-public groups took place throughout the week before the larger pre-sale began.

An email from a Chicago Bears season ticket holder shared with TicketNews described one such advance sale, which began on Monday, September 30, for season ticket members of the club.

It's almost certain that similar pre-sales have taken place at every venue Oasis performs at as part of their 2025 stadium tour. Each U.S. stop on the tour takes place at a venue that is also home to an NFL franchise. However, the venue's lobby group chose to exploit the lack of transparency around when and how tickets will be distributed to score political points and grab headlines on the high-profile tour.

Notably, Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment boss Michael Rapino have both ramped up NIVA efforts through social media, hoping to reinforce the message that ticket resales are condemned as full-blown fraud, despite both Ticketmaster and Live Nation's corporate leadership disagreeing would have been fully aware of this fact that some were able to buy tickets before the letter.

“There is a lack of transparency about how tickets are allocated, sold and distributed in the primary ticket market, which prevents consumers from understanding how the ticket industry works and allows dominant players to manipulate the market,” explained Dooley of StubHub. “Tickets may appear on resale marketplaces prior to public sale as many industry stakeholders, such as season ticket holders, sponsors and professional resellers, receive early access – this was the case with Oasis.”

“At StubHub, our top priority is attracting fans to events,” she continued. “We prohibit the sale of speculative tickets and call on Ticketmaster to open lines of communication, provide ticket verification services and do their part to better protect fans.”

NIVA was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily as a vehicle to advocate for the Save Our Stages Act, which provides more than $16 billion in federal grants to support event organizers, venues and other live event companies provided that were closed mass restrictions. Since then, the company has supported a variety of initiatives, sometimes pushing back against Live Nation Entertainment's enormous market power, but in many cases also acting as an important and conveniently independent voice for initiatives that the corporate giant also supports.

NIVA is a key supporter of the so-called “Fix The Tix” coalition supporting the “Fans First Act,” which is essentially a rehash of Live Nation Entertainment’s clearly outlined legislative priorities. That coalition, which includes several entities with significant ties to former Live Nation boss Irving Azoff, also sparked letters from hundreds of artists—many of whom are represented by Azoff or other Live Nation allies like Red Light Management's Coran Capshaw – in which they demanded “Fans First”.

Even the Save Our Stages Act ultimately proved to be a major boon for the company, as it was revealed that approximately $19 million was soaked up by Live Nation Entertainment subsidiaries – far from “independent” venues that supported the law with taxpayer money should.

StubHub is not the first organization to point to NIVA's hands-on support for Live Nation's public relations efforts as the company fends off a Justice Department attempt to break it up over alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. TicketNetwork described the lobbying group as part of a “coordinated industry effort to portray any platform not under the direct control of the artist or promoters as 'counterfeit' or 'counterfeit' tickets, in response to an earlier attempt to remove resale tickets from the platform.” remove.” Yelp website.

In response to StubHub's refutation of their claims in the letter to Congress, NIVA strengthened their claims that counterfeit tickets are widespread in the market in a response to TicketNews on Friday evening.

“After 36 hours of deliberations following the discovery of at least 4,354 fake Oasis tickets on their platform, StubHub should have taken decisive action to protect consumers,” said Stephen Parker, Executive Director of NIVA. “Instead we just got excuses. On Wednesday, 666 “tickets” for two new Oasis shows appeared on StubHub, less than 40 minutes after the events were announced. How could these be real tickets that are already in the possession of sellers? This seems highly unlikely, not only for these “tickets” but also for most Oasis listings on their platform prior to ticket sales.”