The DOJ alleges the company bought 7,624 tickets to a single 'Renaissance' concert and made about $833,323 in profit scalping them

Federal prosecutors are accusing a San Diego-based entertainment company of using bots and other illegal means to scoop up millions of tickets to hot events such as concerts for Beyoncé, Post Malone, Pitbull, and Luke Bryan, then reselling the tickets in bulk for a profit, often against the artists’ wishes.

In a 22-page lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained by Rolling Stone, the Justice Department says REPS & Co sidestepped ticket limits for at least 83,000 events, shelling out more than $1.3 billion for a staggering 18.5 million tickets to concerts, Broadway shows, college sporting matches, and other popular events identified through software as high-demand. The company then turned around and unloaded the tickets at markups on resale sites including StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime, and Ticketmaster’s own resale platform, raking in at least $120.8 million in profits, prosecutors claim.

The lawsuit alleges that for just one concert on Beyonce’s Renaissance tour at Arrowhead Stadium in California on Oct. 1, 2023, REPS used at least 1,300 accounts to purchase 7,624 tickets through Ticketmaster. The ticket purchase limit for that concert was between four and eight, prosecutors said, and REPS allegedly made approximately $833,323 in profit by reselling those tickets.

For a Sept. 7, 2024, Pitbull concert in Syracuse, N.Y., REPS allegedly used at least 700 accounts to buy 5,430 tickets through Ticketmaster, prosecutors say. The purchases represented nearly one-third of the capacity of the Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater, and the company made approximately $120,109 in profit reselling the tickets, according to the lawsuit.

Attempts to reach a spokesperson for REPS were not immediately successful Thursday. The lawsuit marks the latest crackdown under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, also known as the BOTS Act, which bans scalpers from circumventing ticket limits with technology.

“The Justice Department is committed to holding accountable individuals and businesses that drive up the cost of event tickets by illegally exceeding ticket purchase limits and reselling those unlawfully obtained tickets with exorbitant markups,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement. “Working alongside the FTC, we will continue to enforce the BOTS Act to protect consumers from such conduct.”

Bruno Mars is making his presence in Vancouver felt on the city's public transit system, with the singer lending his voice to SkyTrain announcements during his five-show run at BC Place.

Starting Oct. 14, passengers passing through Stadium–Chinatown Station will hear two prerecorded messages from Mars, timed to coincide with his concerts on Oct. 14, 16, 17, 20 and 21. The collaboration between TransLink and Warner Music Canada makes him the first musical artist to become a celebrity guest voice on SkyTrain.

“To everybody taking the train, it’s Bruno Mars. I can’t wait to see you all. It’s about to get real romantic tonight. I love you,” he says in one announcement.

The second message thanks fans for attending The Romantic Tour: “To everybody on the train, it’s Bruno Mars. Thank you so much for coming to The Romantic Tour. I hope to see you all very soon. I love you.”

The messages will play periodically alongside the station’s regular announcements on concert days. TransLink says the Warner Music Canada partnership will generate additional advertising revenue to help fund transit services across Metro Vancouver.

Mars had done a similar activation in Toronto last May, when he kicked off the season at Rogers Centre.

The SkyTrain promotion follows a similar takeover of Toronto’s transit system during Mars’ five-show run at Rogers Stadium in May. In Toronto, his messages played at Downsview Park, Wilson and Sheppard West stations, which serve the concert venue.

The Vancouver engagement sets another stadium record for Mars: his five BC Place performances mark the most shows by an artist on a single tour in the venue’s history, surpassing Taylor Swift’s three-night run there during the Eras Tour in December 2024.

Siblings Malcolm Todd and Audrey Hobart may compete in this year’s Best New Artist race at the 2027 Grammys.

It’s notoriously difficult to predict how the fine people at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences will assess the past year when Grammy nominations are revealed on Nov. 16., considering voters’ rocky history — remember when Bonnie Raitt’s supremely under-the-radar “Just Like That” won Song of the Year in 2023 over Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” and Taylor Swift’s 10-minute “All Too Well”? But there’s a strong scenario that we’ll see something historic in the Best New Artist category this year if pop songwriter Audrey Hobert and R&B singer Malcolm Todd are both nominated.

They’re signed to different labels and have pretty different fan bases, but they are brother and sister. And if they’re nominated, it would be the first time in Grammy history that two siblings have faced off against each other in that category.

“I’ve just been like, ‘This would be crazy, just the fact that we could both each take one of our parents and we could all go and both our parents could go at the same time,’” Todd recently told Hollywood Reporter. “I already promised my mom, so it would just be pretty awesome if she could bring Dad.”

Dave Grohl might bring his daughter Violet, and it’s in the realm of possibility that they’ll both bring home Grammys, since the Foo Fighters dropped Your Favorite Toy and the younger Grohl released her debut LP, Be Sweet to Me. (We’d be very surprised to see them face off in the same category, but anything is possible.)

They’ve been passing out Grammys since 1959, and it’s easy to assume there were past scenarios like this year, where siblings like Andy Gibb and the Bee Gees or Michael and Janet Jackson were pitted against each other. But it’s actually extraordinarily rare for family members to compete in the same category. Here are six times when it occurred.

Wynton and Branford Marsalis grew up playing music together in their native New Orleans and have collaborated on countless projects over the years. But in 1988, they found themselves in the unusual position of competing for the Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist Grammy. Wynton was nominated for Marsalis Standard Time, Vol. I, and Branford got the nod for “Cottontail.” It was surely a tense moment when the winner was announced, but they were both disappointed. It went to Dexter Gordon for The Other Side of Round Midnight.

Just two years later, Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis were once again competing for a Grammy. This time around, it was Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist, for their projects The Majesty of Blues and Trio Jeepy. Once again, they lost. This time, it was Chick Corea and his LP Chick Corea Acoustic Band that bested them.

A year before he began singing in English and churning out hits like “Be With You” and “Rhythm Divine,” Enrique Iglesias was recording massively popular Spanish-language albums like 1998’s Vivir. He was pitted against his father, Julio Iglesias, and his album Tango for the Best Latin Pop Album Grammy that year. They both lost out to Romances by Luis Miguel. But that same year, the elder Iglesias toppled both his son and Luis Miguel to claim Favorite Latin Artist at the American Music Awards. “When they tell you that your son is against you in competition you feel a little like your brain is another place since I adore my kids,” Julio Iglesias said at the podium that night. “I want to say to the American Music Awards that it’s a beautiful thing you take care of the Latino people. That means a lot for us.”

For a brief window of time between 2008 and 2011, the Grammys had a separate award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album. In the third year of its existence, the Magnolia Sisters — an all-female Cajun band featuring Ann Savoy — found themselves up against the Pine Leaf Boys, which included Ann Savoy’s son, Wilson Savoy. This was an extraordinarily rare mother-son Grammy battle. It ended in a draw since the award went to Buckwheat Zydeco for Lay Your Burden. Just two years later, the Grammys formally killed this category. This probably made for a smoother Thanksgiving at the Savoy household.

Norah Jones had such a big year in 2003 thanks to the success of Come Away With Me that she was nominated for eight Grammys and walked away with five, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Her father, Ravi Shankar, wasn’t up for any Grammys that year, avoiding a family face-off. But in 2013, he was nominated in the Global Music category for his album The Living Room Sessions Part 1 in the same year that his daughter, Anoushka Shankar, was nominated for her LP Traveller. They gave the award to Ravi, though he died two months prior to the ceremony. Anoushka accepted in his place. “That had all kinds of feelings I didn’t know how to process,” she told Vanity Fair in 2025. “I’m sad I lost, but I’m happy I lost to him, I’m happy for him, I’m sad he’s passed away.”

Last year, the Grammys created a new category called Best Traditional Country Album, and changed Best Country Album to Best Contemporary Country Album. It was an acknowledgment that country had changed quite a bit over the decades, and it didn’t make much sense to have Jelly Roll and Willie Nelson in the same category. Willie’s LP Oh What a Beautiful World was nominated that year, and it was up against American Romance, the debut solo record by Lukas Nelson. “‘Against’ is a strong word,” Lukas told The Los Angeles Times. “‘Alongside’ is better. I mean, the Nelsons have a 40% chance of winning, which is pretty good.” Unfortunately, the 60% won out, and Zach Top won for Ain’t in It for My Health.

Geordie Greep

Geordie Greep has apologized to a woman who says she woke up to the musician kissing her while she was asleep, following an account of the alleged incident published by Paste on Wednesday.

The British singer and guitarist addressed the allegations in a statement posted to Instagram on Oct. 14, acknowledging that he approached the woman at a Vancouver apartment and kissed her, while saying he had not realized she was asleep.

“I want to unreservedly apologise to her for what I did and for the distress and hurt I caused that night,” Greep wrote.

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The woman, identified by the pseudonym Laura, told Paste that she had fallen asleep on a couch after a night out with Greep and members of his touring party. She said she woke up to him kissing her and pushed him away before calling out his behaviour. She also said the incident went beyond the description of an unwanted advance that Greep gave during his Vancouver concert on Oct. 8.

Laura said she had no involvement in the distribution of flyers outside the show accusing Greep of rape, adding that the claims on the flyers did not reflect her account. She told Paste that she had not been raped but had been sexually assaulted.

Cameron Campbell, Greep’s former touring keyboardist, corroborated aspects of Laura’s account in the same report. Campbell said he heard her reaction, witnessed the immediate aftermath and later spoke directly with her about what had happened. He also confirmed that he had decided to leave Greep’s band because of the incident.

Greep initially addressed the controversy onstage in Vancouver, describing the encounter as a misunderstanding and denying that he was a rapist. He performed without his backing band and offered refunds to audience members who wanted to leave.

Multiple North American dates were cancelled following the allegations, including shows in Boise, Salt Lake City, Boulder, Denver and Omaha. Greep’s European tour remains scheduled to begin Nov. 1 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, with additional dates planned in France, Spain and Portugal.

Justice

Justice team up with Tame Impala, SZA, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard for the Grand Theft Auto VI track “Flower in a Hurricane,” the first offering from the French duo’s score for the much-anticipated video game.

The three guests switch off vocals on the track, which sounds like a modern take on a song gamers might have heard on the soundtrack for the Eighties-based Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the setting that GTAVI revisits albeit in a present day. The song also reunites Justice with Tame Impala, who was a contributor to the duo’s album Hyperdrama.

(The song also bears a striking similarity to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”; Mark Knopfler is not among the 11 songwriters credited on the track.)

In addition to “Flower in a Hurricane” — which also soundtracked the latest trailer for the video game — Justice have also been enlisted to compose the original score for GTAVI; snippets of that score had previously appeared in teasers for the game, which finally arrives November 19 after years (and years) of delays.

Rockstar Games previously revealed the all-star roster of artists slated to host their own radio stations within the game, including Bad Bunny’s Cocoteo FM and Lana Del Rey’s Back Country Radio. Additionally, Robyn will helm the pop station Flash FM, Trick Daddy and Trina will spin regional rap and classic hip-hop on Dirty South Classics, Nigerian superstar Burna Boy and DJ Palms Trax will helm AfroBank FM, and Slayer’s Kerry King and Tom Araya will oversee the heavy-metal station, The Chamber 106.6. Fans can preview all six featured stations over on the GTAVI website.

“Flower in a Hurricane” is also among the three dozen original songs written specifically for GTAVI; while the track list hasn’t been announced, Travis Scott, Morgan Wallen, Rauw Alejandro, and Keith Richards (yes, that Keith Richards) are among the artists contributing to that.

Céline Dion is the latest music star to receive her own Barbie doll, with Mattel paying tribute to the Québec singer’s memorable 1998 Academy Awards appearance.

Unveiled on Oct. 14, the Barbie Signature collectible recreates the navy-blue, long-sleeved gown Dion wore when she performed “My Heart Will Go On,” her Oscar-winning song from Titanic, at the 70th Academy Awards. The outfit is completed with a necklace inspired by the film’s fictional Heart of the Ocean diamond.

The new doll features a custom face sculpt designed to resemble the singer. The collectible also includes a display stand and certificate of authenticity.

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“It is a true honor to join the Barbie legacy with a doll inspired by one of the most meaningful moments of my career,” Dion said in a statement. “I hope this doll inspires everyone to express themselves with confidence, pursue their dreams and believe in the power of their own voice.”

The doll is priced at $92 and is being sold through Mattel Creations. It is up for preorder now, and the product ships on Dec. 31.