Ex-Ticketmaster boss sentenced for hacking rival company CrowdSurge

Stephen Mead – the former Ticketmaster head who hacked CrowdSurge’s servers – has been sentenced for his crimes that contributed to the company’s collapse.

Mead previously worked for CrowdSurge as their senior vice president for global operations and general manager for North America. He was then employed by Ticketmaster. According to the prosecution (per BBC), during his time at the ticketing giant, Mead allegedly accessed CrowdSurge’s system with IP addresses registered to Ticketmaster at least 25 times between August 2013 and December 2015.

The Department of Justice stated that Mead’s actions contributed to the downfall of CrowdSurge. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusions against the company in June and was now ordered to pay $67,970 (£52,000) as a forfeiture and was also sentenced to a year’s supervised release.

According to court papers which were filed in the US, Ticketmaster executives asked Mead to share “competitive intelligence” about CrowdSurge and its practises. Mead went on to share confidential CrowdSurge spreadsheets, access to the company’s password-protected information – which he was quoted as saying to “screengrab the hell out of the system”, and discussed how to cut off “CrowdSurge at the knees”. Mead also shared real-time ticket sales data and the identities of the performers the company was working with.

Mead’s co-conspirator and boss – former Ticketmaster executive, Zeeshan Zaidi – previously pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud back in 2019.

While working for the ticketing giant, Mead was promoted as the director of client services in Ticketmaster’s artist services division, in 2015 and reported directly to Zaidi.

According to the Department of Justice, the CrowdSurge information was used by Ticketmaster as a way to plan competitive responses in efforts to gain pre-sale ticketing business and compare products and offerings.

The news of Mead’s sentencing comes after the recent Oasis reunion ticket fiasco which saw millions flocking to try to grab tickets and many – including Louis Tomlinson – being left disappointed after several issues arose.

Some who did eventually manage to get through the queues were then disappointed to see the cost of remaining tickets had increased due to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy; a process which sees prices hiked up due to high demand.

The ‘dynamic pricing’ soon led to widespread backlash. As well as countless fans, politicians like Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy also weighed in, calling for a review of the policy and secondary ticket sites. Similarly, Twickets announced a U-turn on their stance – capping their booking fee at a maximum of £25 per ticket – while Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venue Trust (MVT), used the scramble as a way to highlight the struggles faced by grassroots venues.

Hundreds of fans then launched complaints to the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) over surge ticket pricing, debate arose about whether the lack of warning may have been a breach of consumer law, and fans celebrated Robert Smith for fighting Ticketmaster to keep The Cure ticket prices affordable.

Eventually, Oasis addressed the controversy – distancing themselves from the price hikes and announcing that they would be playing two extra shows at Wembley, but this time with much stricter rules in place for ticket sales.

Recently, the UK’s biggest consumer champion brand Which? has called for Ticketmaster to refund fans who were hit by the unexpected surge in prices for “in demand” tickets to Oasis‘ 2025 reunion tour.

According to screenshots provided to Which? by fans affected by the dynamic pricing, Which? claims that Ticketmaster’s pages showed no signs of inflated prices being implemented during the sale.

Which? has also stated that it believes Ticketmaster’s “lack of transparency” about its dynamic pricing “could have breached the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) as many fans were not informed about the increases until after they had already tried to add cheaper tickets to their baskets”.

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