Critics of the secondary ticket business are warning that an epidemic of misleading offers on sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats are eroding consumer confidence in the live event ticket business, and they’re asking for lawmakers to intervene. Longtime music managers like Randy Nichols with the band Underoath say online markets are allowing resellers to list tickets to events that haven’t gone on sale yet — from the 2026 World Cup to David Byrne’s upcoming tour — and reap huge profits from fans who think they are buying legitimate tickets to major sporting events and concerts.

Speculative ticketing exists because of legal loopholes, Nichols says, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Google advertising and fan naivete. For Byrne’s fall Who is the Sky tour, for example, tickets don’t go on sale until mid-June, but ads for tickets on sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats began popping up seconds after it was announced. On Stubhub, front-row tickets for his Nov. 20 show at L.A.’s Dolby Theater were selling for about $1,100.  

Often, the seller of these tickets will only procure them after someone has agreed to buy them, and often the seller will wait until a few days or weeks before the show to buy the tickets, knowing the price almost always goes down closer to the show date. StubHub doesn’t disclose that the person listing these tickets doesn’t have them in their possession. 

“There’s even a hashtag scalpers like to use to make this point titled #itpaystowait,” Nichols says. “The longer they wait, the more profit the scalper makes.”  

Now, Nichols and groups like the National Independent Venues Association and the National Independent Talent Organizations are lobbying hard at both the state and federal level to make such practices illegal. While critics have had success in Maryland passing legislation banning speculative ticketing, lawmakers in New York state recently gutted a bill that would have outlawed it there. Officials like NITO executive director Nathaniel Marro are also worried about federal legislation like the TICKET Act, which originally had language banning the practice but has since been altered with a legal loophole that allows for speculative ticketing as part of a concierge service provided by sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats.  

“Think of it like your favorite grocery delivery service — but for incredible experiences,” Vivid Seats explains on its site. “You cart your selections; we’ll handle the shopping.”   

Marro said these sites don’t make clear to fans what they’re buying; many think they’re buying a ticket, not paying someone to buy a ticket that they themselves could get much cheaper if they shopped around on their own.

“That’s the irony — many fans don’t realize that they could buy these tickets themselves,” Nichols tells Billboard. “The fan is tricked because most begin the process of buying tickets on sites like Google, where secondary sites spend hundreds of millions on deceptive ads and websites to trick consumers into thinking they’re buying tickets directly from the box office.”

Nichols says overcharging the customers means less money for fans to spend and notes that it’s often the box offices that have to deal with customer service problems. And while it’s common for the price of a ticket to go down over time, there are exceptions: with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, sky-high demand made it impossible for some scalpers to fulfill their orders at the price they charged the customer. While some brokers fulfilled the orders at a loss to avoid being penalized by Stubhub, others simply cancelled orders, leaving fans without tickets having spent money on travel and hotels. 

Nichols and Marro worry about the problems speculative ticketing will cause for major sporting events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which is taking place across North America next summer. Tickets for the global soccer tournament have not yet gone on sale, but hundreds are listed across Stubhub and Vivid Seats. There’s even a listing for tickets to sit on the pitch during the final championship match on July 19, at MetLife Stadium, for $1.1 million. 

While it’s unlikely someone would pay that much money on StubHub for a World Cup ticket, even to the final championship game, the worry is that brokers will flood the site with speculative listings and cause a shortage of actual tickets, leaving some fans who traveled halfway around the world without their tickets. 

Stephen Parker, executive director of NIVA, says his group has made progress at the state level outlawing the practice, but is worried that federal legislation protecting it as a concierge service could keep it legal for decades. Another concern is that the legislation protecting speculative tickets could quietly be added to Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” and passed without any debate. “Lawmakers understand the issue but we’re up against a well-funded lobby,” Parker says. “The concern is that much of the progress we made at the state level will be lost with federal legislation.” 

AI music startup Udio is facing another copyright lawsuit — this time a proposed class action on behalf of independent artists who have been “left without a seat at the table” in the high-profile litigation filed by the major labels.

Weeks after news that Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music were in talks to potentially settle their billion-dollar lawsuit against Udio, a country singer named Tony Justice is filing his own case against the company in Manhattan federal court.

Seeking to represent “thousands” of other independent artists in a class action, Justice says the earlier lawsuit filed by the Big Three won’t adequately protect the interests of musicians who aren’t signed to a major label deal.

“Independent artists, whose rights have been trampled the most, are the ones left without a seat at the table, unrepresented, and without a meaningful remedy,” attorneys for Justice write in the lawsuit, filed Monday (June 16). “Class members will never be able to claw back the intellectual property unlawfully copied by Udio and used to train its AI.”

A spokesperson for Udio did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.

AI models like Udio are “trained” by ingesting millions of existing works, thus teaching them to spit out new ones. As AI tech has boomed in recent years, dozens of lawsuits have been filed in federal court over that training process, arguing that AI companies are violating copyrights on a massive scale.

AI firms argue back that such training is legal “fair use,” transforming all those old “inputs” into entirely new “outputs.” Whether that argument succeeds in court is a potentially trillion-dollar question — and one that has yet to be definitively answered by federal judges.

Universal, Warner and Sony sued both Udio and Suno, another AI music firm, last summer, claiming the tech startups had built their models by stealing music on an “unimaginable scale” and “trampling the rights of copyright owners.”

Those cases remain pending, but news broke earlier this month that all three music companies were in talks to potentially settle the litigation by striking licensing deals with the companies. In return for allowing Suno and Udio to train on the vast collections of songs, the proposed deals would see the majors collect fees and receive equity in the startups.

In Monday’s new case against Udio, Justice largely echoes the allegations made by the majors. He says the company has infringed copyrights by training its machines on his songs, including his “Last of the Cowboys,” which has racked up more than 8 million streams on Spotify.

But his case was filed as a proposed class action, meaning he wants to also represent other independent artists who have suffered similar alleged treatment by Udio. He says “thousands” of other artists could eventually be part of the case.

“These acts by Udio were abuse and exploitation of another’s intellectual property of the worst kind,” his lawyers write. “Rather than license copyrighted songs like every other tech-based business is required to do, Udio elected to simply steal the songs of independent artists, plaintiffs, and the class members to then generate AI-soundalike music at virtually no cost to Udio.”

Two of the most beloved new wave bands of all time are hitting the road together this fall for their first-ever joint tour. The 11-date co-headlining Cosmic De-Evolution tour will feature DEVO and the B-52s hitting the road together starting on Sept. 24 in Toronto at the Budweiser Stage, followed by shows in Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, California, North Carolina and Georgia before winding down on Nov. 12 at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Sponsored by Huntsman in Houston, TX.

The continuation of both bands’ ongoing farewell tours will feature avant garde pop singer Lene Lovich opening the shows. Tickets will go on sale first with Citi and Amex pre-sales. The Citi pre-sale begins today (June 16) at 12 p.m. local time through Thursday (June 19) at 10 p.m. local time here. Amex cardmembers can purchase tickets to the Oct. 18 L.A. before the general public now through 10 p.m. local time on Thursday.

“In 2022, I swore I’d never get on a tour bus again” said B-52s singer Fred Schneider in a statement. “But we were careful to say to our fans that we would still perform in special situations that don’t require all of the awful tour travel. Our Vegas residency is going great, and when we were offered the chance to do a small run of shows with Devo, we all said this is an extraordinary opportunity we couldn’t say no to.”

Devo co-rounder Mark Mothersbaugh added, “The B-52s had one of the best sounds of any of the bands out there in the late 70’s early 80’s – ‘Rock Lobster’ is one of my favorite songs – DEVO used to sing it to Booji Boy after DEVO shows. It was either fate or luck or the SNL anniversary that brought us all together to create this amazing chance to go out on tour. All I can say is Cosmic Devolution is REAL!”

Both bands performed on February’s sprawling, three-hour SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert, during which they took the stage alongside a galaxy of stars that also included Miley Cyrus, Bad Bunny, Eddie Vedder, the Backstreet Boys, Lady Gaga, Lauryn Hill, Jelly Roll, Brandi Carlile, the living members of Nirvana with Post Malone and Cher, among others.

B-52 singer Kate Pierson said in the statement, “When we first came from Athens [GA] to New York City to perform, punk was in full force… and New Wave was right on its tail! We loved all the New Wave groups, including Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie and the Ramones. We also really dug the far-out weirdness of Devo, which seemed very in tuned to our sensibilities. We remember one of our first shows — amazed that David Bowie, Brian Eno, Frank Zappa, Allen Ginsberg, Talking Heads and Blondie all came to see us! When we opened the Mudd Club, we partied with Devo and really hit it off on the dance floor. Later, Brian Eno went onto to produce Devo’s incredible first album… and now we will align again ! So put on your wig hats and Devo bonnets and get ready to party! This is going to be wild.”

Bandmate Cindy Wilson also chimed in, saying, “When both of our bands performed at the recent SNL 50 concert at Radio City, we started talking and agreed we had to do these shows. Believe or not, we’ve never done more than a festival or two together in all this time. This will be amazing and I can’t wait for The B-52s to share these stages with Devo!”

Both groups fronted by three original members are in the midst of what they have said are their final tours.

Check out the dates for the 2025 Cosmic De-Evolution North American tour below.

Linkin Park‘s Mike Shinoda has shouted out Doechii as one of his dream collaborators.

In a sit-down with Drink Champs, Linkin Park’s Shinoda and Joe Hahn rattled off a few of the biggest hip-hop figures they’d love to make music with. On Shinoda’s list was Wu-Tang Clan, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator and André 3000. He then added Ms. Lauryn Hill and gave a special shout out to Queen Latifah. “She’s so confident and she’s not like selling sex,” Shinoda said around the 1:30 mark, adding, “She felt like a role model.”

Shinoda then realized the error of his ways and quickly added Doechii to the top of the roster. “Oh, Doechii. Why didn’t I say Doechii? … I should’ve said Doechii earlier.” After scrolling through his phone to jog his memory of female rappers, he then also added: “Doja [Cat]’s dope.”

If any of these collaborations do happen, it would hardly mark the first time LP teamed up with a hip-hop star. The band most notably linked with Jay-Z for a hit mash-up of “Numb / Encore” from their joint 2004 Collision Course EP. Linkin Park also later collaborated with Rakim for their 2014 single “Guilty All the Same” and Pusha T and Stormzy on 2017’s “Good Goodbye.”

Hayley Williams recently celebrated Doechii’s impact in a heartfelt tribute penned for Them. In the piece, the Paramore singer praised the Swamp Princess in part for her memorable performance at the 2022 BET Awards.

“Watching her on that stage, I had the same feeling I did the first time I saw Missy Elliott on MTV as a kid,” Williams said. “It was raw, bold, unmistakable talent — the kind that doesn’t wait for permission. She came out swinging, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, she’s taking it. This is hers.’”

Watch the full Drink Champs episode below.

Remi Wolf made the most of an unfortunate situation after this year’s Bonnaroo was canceled from Friday-Sunday (June 13-15) due to severe weather, hosting a joint concert in Nashville featuring Hayley Williams and more special guests.

On Saturday (June 14) — the same day the California native had been slated to host her Bonnaroo Superjam on the festival grounds in Manchester, Tenn., before thunderstorms forced the entire event to end early — Wolf took the stage at the Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville. In addition to singing several covers of ’70s hits on her own, she and the Paramore frontwoman duetted on Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” and “Tell Me Something Good” with Rufus, according to The Tennessean.

Gigi Perez and Mt. Joy, who were also part of Bonnaroo’s canceled Saturday lineup, performed their new song “In The Middle,” while Grouplove helped Wolf sing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl.” Plus, Brian Robert Jones assisted in paying tribute to Sly and the Family Stone — whose influential frontman, Sly Stone, died at the age of 82 last week — with a performance of “Family Affair,” while Grace Bowers and Medium Build also shared songs.

“This is so f–king fun, thank you guys for coming out tonight,” Wolf reportedly told the crowd. “We’ve been working on this show for like five months, and when Bonnaroo was canceled yesterday, we just had to make this s–t happen!”

According to The Tennessean, Wolf ended the show by having all of her guest artists return to the stage for a group performance of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”

Just as it had been originally billed on the Bonnaroo lineup, the indie-pop star called her Nashville concert “Remi Wolf’s Insanely Fire 1970s Pool Party Superjam.” She announced the make-up show late Friday night, and tickets reportedly sold out the next morning.

The change of plans came in light of Bonnaroo’s Friday announcement that the festival had been canceled after just one full day of performances. “Today, the National Weather Service provided us with an updated forecast with significant and steady precipitation that will produce deteriorating camping and egress conditions in the coming days,” the festival shared in a statement. “We are beyond gutted, but we must make the safest decision and cancel the remainder of Bonnaroo.”

The annual festival had been slated to last four straight days with sets from Olivia Rodrigo, Tyler, The Creator, Hozier and dozens more. Before it was delayed and eventually canceled, Bonnaroo kicked off Thursday (June 12) with performances by Luke Combs, Dom Dolla, Insane Clown Posse and Rebecca Black.