In 1994, Pearl Jam wanted fans to pay no more than $20 for a ticket. Ticketmaster's $3.25 fee pushed the price past that line, and the band canceled its summer tour rather than accept it. In the video below, the band tells Congress who it was fighting for. "All the members of Pearl Jam remember what it's like to be young and not have a lot of money." Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament testified before a House subcommittee on June 30, 1994. Gossard said part of Ticketmaster's fee went back to promoters and venues and blamed "this incestuous relationship and the lack of any national competition for Ticketmaster." Asked whether Ticketmaster was entitled to a profit, the band answered: "I think our main concern is, are we entitled to use a different company other than Ticketmaster?" Aerosmith's manager told the subcommittee what Steven Tyler had said to him: "Mussolini may have made the trains run on time, but not everyone could get a seat on that train." Ticketmaster said it had offered, through promoters, to cut the fee to $2.25 or $2.50, depending on the area. It blamed the band: "They said this was it, take it or leave it." Pearl Jam wanted $1.80. The gap was 45 to 70 cents a ticket. The next year, the band sold a tour through a smaller company and canceled half the dates. Eleven days later, the Justice Department closed its investigation without filing a case. On April 15, 2026, 32 years after the testimony, a jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had illegally maintained a monopoly and that fans in 22 states had overpaid an average of $1.72 a ticket. Live Nation is contesting the verdict. Who cost the fans the 1994 tour: Pearl Jam or Ticketmaster?