Former Ticketmaster Executive Sentenced for Hacking Rival CrowdSurge

Stephen Mead, a former executive at Ticketmaster, has been sentenced for illegally accessing the computer servers of CrowdSurge, a rival ticketing company, and stealing sensitive information. Mead’s actions, which took place between 2013 and 2015, significantly contributed to the collapse of CrowdSurge, according to the U.S. Department of Justice in New York.

Mead, a British national, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy charges related to computer intrusions against CrowdSurge. He has been ordered to pay a forfeiture amounting to $67,970 (approximately £52,000) and will serve a year of supervised release. The court documents indicate that executives from Ticketmaster had directed Mead to gather “competitive intelligence” about CrowdSurge.

CrowdSurge, a London-based ticketing company with an office in New York, allowed artists to sell pre-sale tickets to fans and was valued at over $100 million. Mead worked as CrowdSurge’s senior vice president for global operations and general manager for North America until he left the company in July 2012. As part of his departure, Mead signed a separation agreement prohibiting him from retaining or sharing any confidential information and forbidding him from working for another ticketing company for a year. CrowdSurge paid Mead approximately $52,970 as part of this agreement.

However, Mead breached this agreement multiple times. By the summer of 2013, he was employed by Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, in a division called TicketWeb. Court records reveal that between August 2013 and December 2015, CrowdSurge’s server logs show at least 25 instances of unauthorized access from computers with IP addresses linked to Ticketmaster and its affiliates in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The prosecution alleges that Mead shared CrowdSurge’s confidential spreadsheets, including financial information and passwords, and accessed competitive information about the company’s clients and technology at the behest of Ticketmaster executives. He also provided Ticketmaster employees with information that enabled them to breach CrowdSurge’s password-protected data. Mead reportedly advised them to capture extensive screenshots of CrowdSurge’s system and even discussed strategies to “cut off CrowdSurge at the knees.”

On one occasion, Mead gave a presentation to about 14 Live Nation and Ticketmaster executives, demonstrating CrowdSurge’s bespoke product, the Artists’ Toolbox, using unauthorized access. During his tenure, he also shared real-time ticket sales data and details of CrowdSurge’s performer partnerships with Ticketmaster. The Department of Justice notes that this information helped Ticketmaster formulate competitive strategies and contributed to monetary losses for CrowdSurge in a highly competitive market.

Mead’s criminal activities were discovered in 2015 when a former Ticketmaster executive, now employed by CrowdSurge, alerted the company to the need for enhanced security measures. Mead was subsequently terminated from Live Nation and Ticketmaster around October 2017. He returned to the UK in 2019 and was arrested in Italy earlier this year before being extradited to the U.S.

In addition to Mead’s criminal case, legal actions involving Ticketmaster continued. In 2015, CrowdSurge’s parent company, Complete Entertainment Resources, filed a civil lawsuit against Ticketmaster, accusing it of market dominance and attempts to stifle competition. This lawsuit alleged that Ticketmaster blocked numerous artists from working with SongKick—a company CrowdSurge had merged with—and coerced them into working exclusively with Ticketmaster.

In 2018, Ticketmaster and SongKick settled their dispute, with Ticketmaster agreeing to pay $110 million and acquiring SongKick’s ticketing technology. Ticketmaster also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice in 2020, admitting to five counts of fraud. As part of the agreement, Ticketmaster was fined $10 million and required to modify its compliance program. The Department of Justice confirmed that Ticketmaster fulfilled the terms of this agreement in July 2024.

Mead’s sentencing underscores the ongoing scrutiny and legal challenges faced by major ticketing companies in the competitive market.