Live Nation and Ticketmaster want a judge to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit claiming the companies have enabled scalpers to jack up concert prices, calling it an “unprecedented” use of federal ticketing laws.

The FTC sued the live giants last year, claiming they had engaged in years of “unfair and deceptive practices” that hurt consumers, including allowing brokers to buy up tickets and resell them at sky-high prices. The case came as spiking prices have rankled fans during a post-pandemic concert boom.

But in a motion filed Tuesday in federal court, Live Nation and Ticketmaster called the FTC’s case an “egregious instance of agency overreach” that should be tossed out of court immediately. In doing so, they accused the feds of misusing the BOTS Act, a 2016 law aimed at quashing scalping, in ways unintended by the lawmakers who wrote it.

“This statute is designed to help ticket issuers like Ticketmaster combat ticket harvesting and scalping, ensuring that tickets are accessible to genuine fans,” the company’s lawyers write. “Plaintiffs now ask this court to take the unprecedented step of applying this law against a ticket issuer for its operation of a resale platform.”

A spokeswoman for the FTC declined to comment on Live Nation’s motion.

With Live Nation and Ticketmaster already facing a blockbuster monopoly lawsuit from the Justice Department, the FTC filed its own separate case in September — accusing the companies of costing consumers billions in inflated ticket prices. The agency claimed they were “tacitly coordinating” with ticket brokers by allowing them to “harvest” millions worth of tickets despite public rules against it.

“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” FTC chairman Andrew N. Ferguson wrote at the time. “It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show.”

The case was aimed at a common gripe from music fans, who have seen ticket prices skyrocket as live music has boomed in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered venues. Though Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was the poster child for infamously expensive resale tickets — fans routinely paid five-figure sums for some tickets — prices have risen across the board. According to Billboard Boxscore, the average ticket price for a stadium show in North America has risen from $101.77 in 2016 to $150.94 in 2024, for example.

But in their motion on Tuesday, attorneys for Live Nation and Ticketmaster say the BOTS Act was simply not intended to target ticket-selling platforms. The statute — formally the Better Online Ticket Sales Act — was aimed at cracking down on scalpers themselves, the companies’ lawyers write, and the FTC “cannot rewrite that statute through this litigation.”

“Plaintiffs’ theory boils down to the idea that Ticketmaster is liable under the BOTS Act merely for knowing that some brokers used multiple accounts or that some accounts possessed more tickets than the ticket limit permitted,” Live Nation’s lawyers write. “But that theory does not amount to a violation of the statute Congress enacted.”

The companies also argue that the FTC’s other allegations — including that Live Nation and Ticketmaster employed “bait-and-switch pricing” by tacking deceptive fees onto low advertised prices — were “equally deficient” because they now employ all-in pricing that discloses fees.

Despite its strong denial of any legal wrongdoing, Live Nation has announced major policy changes in the wake of the FTC’s lawsuit. In an October letter to Congress, the company told lawmakers that it plans to bar brokers from operating multiple accounts on its platform, shutter a long-criticized uploading application, and start requiring brokers to hand over Social Security numbers to sell tickets.

The countdown is on until Cardi B’s Little Miss Drama Tour begins on Feb. 11. After starting tour rehearsals in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Jan. 6), Cardi hopped on IG Live early Wednesday (Jan. 7) to give fans an update on a few things, including the tour’s budget.

Cardi revealed that even after redoing the budget, she’s still over by a couple of million dollars, and the Bronx rapper needs to find the money elsewhere. The Grammy-winning artist said she could fund it herself to make sure she’s putting on the proper show she wants fans to enjoy.

“I’m over a couple of million on my budget tour,” she said. “We redid the budget, so now it’s just like I gotta go find the f—king money, or I would have to put some of my own money for things that I want because I went over my budget. I feel like we do the budget every other week and s—t.”

Cardi continued: “It’s just, like, a lot. On top of that, it’s a lot of dance moves that I gotta do and I’m just ready to go home. I don’t know what it is about L.A., but I don’t like being in L.A. anymore.”

Even with the budget issues, Cardi calmed the BardiGang’s worries, letting them know she’s working hard and going to put on a show she’s proud of, but don’t expect any Beyoncé-level production.

“I ain’t no damn Beyoncé, so don’t be expecting any of that. I don’t got that production money, but b—h, I’m gonna give it all I got. I’m working hard, I’m popping it,” she added. “This tour is catered to BardiGang, and to people who are not even BardiGang but are some type of fan of mine or just wanna have a good time.”

Palm Desert, Calif., will get the opening show of Cardi’s first headlining North American trek on Feb. 11. She’s scheduled for 36 dates, including stops in Las Vegas, Miami, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Baltimore, Philly, Charlotte, Toronto and Atlanta. She will also perform a pair of shows at NYC’s Madison Square Garden.

The Little Miss Drama Tour comes on the heels of Cardi’s sophomore album, Am I the Drama?, which topped the Billboard 200 in September with 200,000 equivalent album units earned.

“Check your ego at the door.”

That was the famous credo that producer Quincy Jones posted during the all-star 1985 “We Are the World” recording session that featured some of the biggest names in pop and rock congregating for a good cause as they set their A-list status to the side for one night of good work.

That is also the marching order for this year’s Freezing Man 2026 two-day benefit concert at The Sylvee in Vig’s native Madison, Wis. on Friday (Jan. 9) and Saturday (Jan. 10), whose proceeds all go toward epilepsy research and programs. “It’s so fun and everyone is super cool and they all check their egos at the door,” Garbage drummer and indie rock producer Butch Vig tells Billboard of the “plethora of treasures” at the show that will feature him playing along side Garbage guitarist Duke Erikson, as well as members of the Bangles (Vicki Peterson), Goo Goo Dolls (John Rzeznik), Belly (Gail Greenwood) and Big Star (Jody Stephens, Jon Auer).

That all-star crew will also be joined by some of the members of Soul Asylum, Letters to Cleo, Silversun Pickups, Fountains of Wayne, the Cowsills, Miguel Cervantes (of Hamilton) and a few new faces joining the line-up this year: members of the Go-Gos (Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock), Eve 6 (Max Collins), Guns N’ Roses (Matt Sorum) and Olivia Rodrigo touring drummer Jordi Radnoti.

The benefits began 15 years ago under the title Joey’s Song, around the time Vig says he first started playing with Erikson and their friend musician Freedy Johnston at small cafes in Madison as a pick-up group called the Know-It-All-Boyfriends. That ad hoc group then transformed into the benefit’s official backing band as the event expanded and re-branded as Freezing Man, now in its second year.

“We called ourselves the world’s greatest and worst cover band because we would never practice,” says Vig of the Boyfriends. In addition to releasing eight albums with Garbage since 1995, Vig is also known for producing a number of landmark rock albums, including Nirvana’s Nevermind and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, but he says the annual benefit has become one of his favorite shows of the year.

“Everyone who came to the shows knew it would be kind of loose and then we started pulling in some bigger artists and moved to some bigger theaters over the last three years,” Vig adds, noting that the show is now a two-night affair at the 2,500-capacity Sylvee. The benefit raises funds for Joey’s Song, a non-profit dedicated to supporting epilepsy research and education.

Joey’s Song was founded 15 years ago in honor of Joey Gomoll, who died before his fifth birthday after a lifelong battle with Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. The series of benefit concerts that also donates funds for family support services has raised more than $1.75 million to date.

This year’s show will add the first-ever “Electric Jam Livestream,” which will take place at 7 p.m. CT during the Jan. 10 concert. The first night will feature an unplugged show, during which the musicians will tell the stories behind their most beloved hits, followed by Saturday night’s high-energy, electric set.

Vig will once again be the musical director for the show, with the Know-It-All-Boyfriends serving as the house band. The festivities will kick off with a Joey’s Song tradition: a battle of the bands between the Boyfriends and their all-female alter egos, the Know-It-All-Girlfriends, each performing randomly chosen songs. The show will end with a jam session featuring a rotating group of musicians playing everything from the participants’ chart hits to deep cuts and their favorite catalog songs.

The real work for Vig is corralling more than 70 singers and musicians into a “giant puzzle” of a band featuring 12 guitarists, 10 drummers, seven bass players, two keyboardists and countless singers. Last year’s setlist was a prime example of the breadth of the night’s performances, which swung from covers of AC/DC, the Beatles, the Clash, Cranberries and Bikini Kill to songs by the Stooges, Chappell Roan, Stevie Nicks, Toto, Talking Heads and David Bowie.

And while the Boyfriends used to famously never rehearse because Vig joked they didn’t want to get “too good,” this year there will be a full run-through and a “fair amount of rehearsing” on Thursday (Jan. 8) of the acoustic and electric sets, as well as the battle of the bands.

Vig says he got involved in Freezing Man because, as it turns out, he knew Gomoll, who was a stage manager at one of Madison’s most beloved rock clubs, Headliners, where the drummer/producer’s pre-Garbage band, Spooner, used to play a lot. He hadn’t seen Gomoll for a long time, though, before being re-introduced to him by Johnston at a festival show a few years ago.

Johnston mentioned he was working on a Joey’s Song benefit and asked if Vig wanted to join up, and after hearing about Gomoll’s heartbreaking loss of his son, the indie rock veteran felt compelled to sign up for what he says were some very personal reasons.

“I have some people in my life who have epilepsy,” says Vig, noting that one of his best friends and a sister-in-law both have the seizure disorder. “I just said, ‘I’m on board, what can I do?’”

In addition to wanting to support a good cause, Vig said the show is just a ton of fun, comparing the “super loose” backstage vibe to “rock and roll summer camp,” with everyone hanging out singing and playing guitar while trying to find a way to hop in on each other’s sets.

And while he was still working on the setlist at press time, asked which newcomers he’s excited about this year, Vig said he’s psyched that Tears For Fears bassist/singer Curt Smith — who toured with Garbage in 2022 — is joining the lineup for the first time.

Megan Thee Stallion has been chronicling her hardcore workout routine for several years now. In videos encouraging her fellow Hot Girls to pump up, eat right and take care of their bodies, she’s made hitting the gym look and sound good.

Now, Meg’s branching out with her latest endorsement deal, one that combines her fitness mindset while tapping into the craze for adding more protein to your diet. In a vibrant, retro 1980s ad that pays homage to Jane Fonda’s famous Reagan-era workout videos, Megan slips into a pink and orange body suit to rap the praises of Dunkin’s new Protein Refreshers shakes.

The one-minute spot — shared by Meg to her social media accounts, and which is part of Dunkin’s “Dunk N’ Pump” campaign — takes place on a bright pink soundstage, with the Grammy-winning MC introducing herself with her nom de rap, as well as alter ego The Hot Girl Coach and her new monetizing moniker: ProTina. “It’s time to grab those Protein Refreshers and start pumping!” Meg says as she sashays into place holding one of the drinks made with Protein Milk that come in a variety of flavors.

Joined by her fellow Hotties, Megan does some basic Jazzercise-like stretches as she takes periodic pulls from a straw and makes sure to seductively swirl the beverage while targeting the most important region in her workout: the “sip muscles.”

Backed by a bouncy funk track, she then busts out an original rap hyping the drinks. “6, 7, 8, 9, 10/ All of your exes gonna want you again/ Bang, bang, the body is bangin’/ Turn around the thing be bangin’,” she raps as the crew filming her join in on the sip-athon.

“Teaming up with Dunkin’ to bring my new Mango Protein Refresher to life has been such an exciting experience and I can’t wait for the Hotties to try it,” said the Houston Hottie in a statement. “Whether you’re drinking it to boost your fitness routine or just to power through a busy day, it’s the perfect drink for any occasion.”

It’s just the latest brand extension from the “Bongos” MC, who celebrated the opening of her first Popeyes restaurant in Miami, Fla., on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31). After starting her partnership with the chain via her Hottie Sauce in 2021, the South Beach location marked Megan’s debut as a franchise owner, which she celebrated with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the South Beach location.