Ticketmaster has expanded its face-value resale partnership with CashorTrade to its festival ticketing subsidiary, Front Gate Tickets.
Fans who bought festival passes through Front Gate can now resell them to other fans on CashorTrade for no more than they originally paid.
Festivals ticketed by Front Gate include Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Bourbon & Beyond, Lost Lands, and Ultra Music Festival, according to CashorTrade.
CashorTrade announced the integration in a press release on October 30.
Ticketmaster acquired Austin-based Front Gate Tickets in 2015, alongside DIY ticketing platform Universe.
Front Gate processed more than USD $300 million in sales in 2014, the year before the deal.
Ticketmaster launched its first integration with CashorTrade on April 7, letting fans resell authenticated Ticketmaster concert tickets on the platform, capped at their original price.
Under the new tie-up, CashorTrade checks each pass directly with Front Gate and confirms what the seller paid, including fees, using Front Gate’s record of the original purchase.
Sellers cannot list a pass above that price, and once it sells, the ticket is reissued to the buyer inside the CashorTrade app.
CashorTrade says it remains independent and fan-to-fan, and that every listing on the platform is still subject to its Face Value Policy.
“Every new integration is another door we open for fans who just want to see a show and pay the original, face value price,” said Brando Rich, CEO and co-founder of CashorTrade.
“Festival fans plan their whole year around these weekends,” Rich added. “Now, when plans change, they can hand a pass to another fan at face value, verified at the source.”
“Festival fans plan their whole year around these weekends. Now, when plans change, they can hand a pass to another fan at face value, verified at the source.”
Brando Rich, CashorTrade
“Festival goers should be able to buy resale tickets for festivals knowing they’re getting the real thing,” said Andrew Sider, EVP of Festivals and General Admission at Ticketmaster. “By extending Front Gate Tickets’ verification process to CashorTrade, we’re giving fans another trusted place to buy and sell legitimate tickets at face value or below.”
“Fans deserve more ways to buy and sell tickets at the original price, with confidence that what they’re getting is legitimate,” said David Marcus, Ticketmaster’s EVP of Music, when the original partnership was announced in April. “By working with CashorTrade, we’re expanding face value resale in a way that gives fans more choice, and we’ll continue to support partnerships with resale platforms that operate with integrity and respect artist terms.”
Later that month, Marcus told Pollstar that Ticketmaster planned to open all of its events to resale via CashorTrade.
“Initially we started with a handful of bands to test it out, but we’re going to be whitelisting all 100 percent of the events on Ticketmaster to be available at CashorTrade,” Marcus said.
“Artists don’t need to opt in to this,” the Ticketmaster executive added. “It’s good for them regardless.”
Ticketmaster has offered artists the option of capping resale prices through its own Face Value Exchange since 2019, according to the company.
CashorTrade calls the technology behind its Ticketmaster and Front Gate integrations Verified Face Value Resale: an API system built with Ticketmaster that confirms a ticket’s original price with the primary seller ahead of any resale listing.
The company unveiled the system at the Pollstar Live! conference in Los Angeles in April.
“Verifying the face value of a ticket directly from the source before it is listed for resale is a gamechanger,” Rich said in a statement in May.
“The price isn’t something we ask sellers to honor. It’s something the technology enforces,” the CashorTrade CEO continued.
The Front Gate expansion comes as Live Nation and Ticketmaster contest a lawsuit brought by the US Federal Trade Commission over ticket resale and pricing practices.
The FTC and seven states sued the companies in September 2025, alleging that Ticketmaster knowingly allowed brokers to exceed artists’ ticket limits and then resell those tickets on its own resale marketplace. The suit also accuses Ticketmaster of advertising ticket prices that left out mandatory fees until checkout.
In a court filing on October 13, Live Nation and Ticketmaster called the lawsuit “misguided” and denied claims that Ticketmaster profited from brokers who got around artists’ ticket limits.
“Ticketmaster, and its parent company, Live Nation, have been at the forefront of the fight against ticket scalpers, investing over $1 billion since 2010 to prevent scalpers’ industrial-scale, technology-driven ticket purchasing and to protect fans’ access to primary ticket sales,” the filing states.
Separately, a federal jury in Manhattan found in April that Ticketmaster had illegally monopolized primary ticketing at major US concert venues, and that Live Nation had monopolized the market for large amphitheaters.
The verdict was a win for 33 states and the District of Columbia, which pressed on with the case after the US Department of Justice settled its claims a week into the trial in March.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster have since asked the court to throw out that verdict or grant a new trial.
After the verdict, Stephen Parker, Executive Director of the National Independent Venue Association, said that “Ticketmaster should not be permitted to participate in the ticket resale market.”
CashorTrade was founded in 2009 by brothers Brando and Dusty Rich.
Its artist partners include Phish, Stick Figure, Waxahatchee, and The Disco Biscuits.Music Business Worldwide
