The Debate: Honest Ticket Prices Are Hardest on the Smallest Festivals

Ten million dollars is what it cost StubHub to find out that the Federal Trade Commission was not bluffing.

In April the largest ticket resale marketplace in the country agreed to pay that sum into a consumer redress fund, settling FTC charges that it advertised ticket prices without showing buyers what they would actually pay. The conduct at issue covers three days, May 12 through May 14 of 2025, the window immediately after the agency’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect. Some of the tickets were NFL seats sold before the league announced its schedule.

“Price transparency is essential to a free and competitive marketplace,” said Christopher Mufarrige, who runs the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

He is right. We also want to argue, against our own interest, that the rule he is enforcing lands harder on a festival our size than on any of the operators it was written to discipline. Both of those things are true at once.

What the Rule Actually Requires

The Fees Rule is narrower than its nickname suggests. It does not cap fees. It does not ban them. It does not tell anyone what to charge. It says that if you advertise a price for a live event ticket or a hotel room, the total including every mandatory fee must be displayed more prominently than any other number on the screen.

Taxes, shipping and genuinely optional add ons can still appear later in the checkout flow, provided the buyer is told before payment that they exist. The rule reaches everybody who offers, displays or advertises live event tickets, including business to business sales. The agency collected more than sixty thousand public comments about fees and chose to start with hotels and live events.

One detail matters for anyone assuming this was a partisan project that would quietly expire. The rule passed on a split vote, with Commissioner Melissa Holyoak in favor and Andrew Ferguson dissenting. Ferguson is now the Chairman, and his Commission voted 2 to 0 to authorize the StubHub complaint. Whatever he thought of the rule in the abstract, his FTC enforced it. This regulation is not going anywhere.

The Part Small Festivals Do Not Say Out Loud

Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic. Fees are not proportional to face value. Payment processing, the ticketing platform and fraud screening cost roughly the same whether the ticket is thirty five dollars or three hundred. Fees are therefore a far larger share of a cheap ticket than an expensive one.

Run it. A small one day festival at a thirty five dollar face value might carry eleven dollars in mandatory fees. All in, forty six dollars, with fees at twenty four percent of what the customer sees. An arena show at a hundred and fifty dollar face value might carry twenty eight dollars in fees. All in, a hundred and seventy eight, with fees at sixteen percent.

Under the old display rules both events advertised face value. Thirty five against a hundred and fifty. The small festival read as roughly a quarter the price of the arena show, which is the story it wanted to tell. Under all in pricing it is forty six against a hundred and seventy eight. Still cheaper, obviously, but the gap narrowed, and it narrowed because the smaller event was carrying the heavier proportional load the entire time.

There is a second cost with no math in it at all. Marketing copy can no longer lead with a low number. Tickets from thirty five dollars was the line that earned the click, and it is gone. A small festival’s advantage in a crowded calendar was being obviously, immediately affordable at a glance, and glance level affordability is precisely what the rule removes.

Our Stake, Stated Plainly

We sell tickets. Sunset Country Fest is on April 3, 2027 at the Apopka Amphitheater, and when our on sale opens we will publish a single all in number, because that is the law and because we would do it regardless. That number will be bigger than the one a Central Florida family has been trained by twenty years of ticketing to expect, and some of them will bounce off it. We are not a neutral party here and will not perform neutrality.

The Counter-Argument, Which Beats Ours

Now the honest part. Everything above describes a marketing inconvenience. What the rule corrected was two decades of a transaction that functioned by misleading people. A business whose growth depends on withholding a quarter of the price until the final screen is not a business under pressure, it is a trick under pressure, and being small does not entitle us to run one.

The compression argument also cuts both ways, and we moved past that too quickly. All in pricing strips the fake low number off the arena show exactly as thoroughly as it strips ours. Everyone is quoted in the same unit now. That is not a disadvantage to small events. It is the first time in twenty years that somebody weighing a local festival against a stadium tour has been comparing like with like.

The lost click is also worth less than it looks. A buyer who clicks on thirty five dollars and arrives at checkout facing forty six has not been converted, they have been irritated. Some abandon. Some complete the purchase and show up already feeling slightly worked over, which is a poor state of mind for deciding whether to come back next spring. For an event that only exists if people return, a smaller top of funnel full of people who know the real price is better inventory than a large one full of people who do not.

Where We Land

The rule is right and we would not repeal it if we could. Our complaint turns out to be a complaint about craft. All in pricing takes away a lazy headline and makes small events earn attention with what is on the stage instead of what is on the banner.

So the adjustment is practice, not lobbying. Publish one number everywhere, poster and story and radio spot. Show the fee breakdown before anyone asks. Retire the invented early bird tiers that exist mainly to make the real price feel like a penalty. Compete on the day out rather than on the discovery price.

The festivals that will struggle under this rule are the ones whose pricing only ever worked when nobody could see it.

Frequently Asked: Does the FTC rule make ticket fees illegal?

No. The FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, in effect since May 12, 2025, does not cap or ban ticket fees. It requires that any advertised price for a live event ticket show the total a buyer will pay including all mandatory fees, displayed more prominently than any other pricing information. Taxes and genuinely optional charges may be disclosed later in checkout but must be revealed before payment. In April 2026 the FTC settled with StubHub for ten million dollars in consumer redress over alleged violations.

Sunset Country Fest takes place on April 3, 2027 at the Apopka Amphitheater, 3710 Jason Dwelley Pkwy, Apopka, FL 32712, with gates at 2:00 PM.

Sources & References

• Federal Trade Commission: StubHub Refunding 10 Million Dollars in Fees to Consumers After Deceptive Ticket Pricing
• National Law Review: FTC Issues Final Rule Targeting Junk Fees in Live Event Ticketing and Hotel Industries
• ArentFox Schiff: The FTC Is Already Enforcing the New Junk Fees Rule
• Regulatory Oversight: State Attorneys General and Continued Enforcement Against Junk Fees in 2026

Disclaimer: Important Notice

The information published in this article is based on publicly available data from official sources, press releases, and music industry publications available at the time of writing. Tour dates, ticket prices, venue details, setlists, album release schedules, award nominations, lineup announcements, and all other details referenced in this article are subject to change at any time without prior notice.

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Sunset Country Fest shall not be held liable for any decisions, travel arrangements, ticket purchases, or other actions taken by readers based on the information published here. We strongly encourage all readers to verify current details, including dates, venues, ticket availability, and event status, directly through official artist channels, venue box offices, and authorized ticketing platforms before making any plans or purchases.

Last updated: October 12, 2026 · Sunset Country Fest Editorial Team · Contact Us