There is a Department of Justice and 30 state and district attorneys general decompose the owner . They allege in an antitrust lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York that the company created an illegal monopoly over the live entertainment industry. The lawsuit alleges that Live Nation harmed fans, promoters and artists because its dominance stifled innovation and competition, leading to higher ticket prices.
Live Nation owns and/or operates many venues and festivals. It also sells tickets to concerts and festivals and manages many of the artists who play there.
“We allege that Live Nation engages in unlawful, anticompetitive conduct that exercises monopoly control over the live events industry in the United States at the expense of fans, artists, small promoters and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland . “The result is that fans pay more royalties, fewer opportunities for artists to play gigs, smaller promoters are squeezed out and venues have less realistic options for ticketing services. It’s time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
The DOJ is reportedly investigating as Ticketmaster struggles to meet massive demand for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour in 2022. . Swift ticket failure pushed a Senate antitrust hearing.
The DOJ alleges that Live Nation created a dominant position by inducing artists to use its services and threatening potential competitors in the live music promotion space. The company has also been accused of locking venues into long, exclusive contracts that prevent them from using alternative (and possibly cheaper) ticketing platforms. Department of Justice Live Nation handles approximately 60 percent of the concert promotions at major U.S. venues, as well as approximately 80 percent of the primary tickets at major concert venues.
Live Nation allegedly tried to lock out competitors and protect its so-called “malan” model. The DOJ describes it as a “self-reinforcing business model that collects fees and revenue from concert fans and sponsorships, uses that revenue to lock artists into exclusive promotional deals, and then leverages the strong memory of live content to sign venues to long-term exclusive ticket deals, thereby starts the cycle again.”
The merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster received the green light from the DOJ in 2010, but the deal was subject to some conditions. The agency extended the consent decree by five years to 2025 after the Justice Department found in 2019 that Live Nation violated a condition barring it from threatening venues that choose to use a Ticketmaster competitor.
, Live Nation denied the monopoly claim. “The defining characteristic of a monopolist is the monopoly profit derived from the monopoly price,” he said. “Live Nation doesn’t fit the profile in any way. Ticketmaster’s service fees are no higher and often lower than elsewhere.”
The company claimed that its split would not lead to lower ticket prices or service charges. It claims that concert promoters and ticket companies are not controlling rising ticket prices due to rising production costs and the rising popularity of artists. Live Nation also says that Ticketmaster “keeps only a small portion” of its service fees and that its market share has declined in recent years.
Other parts of the government have focused on Live Nation and Ticketmaster. House of Representatives This would force Ticketmaster and other ticket companies to show the total price of tickets to buyers in advance. There is also a separate bill in the Senate that seeks to make ticket prices more transparent. Similarly, there is the Federal Trade Commission Banning unnecessary fees added to the total price at checkout by companies including Ticketmaster. In turn, Live Nation and Ticketmaster They will start showing customers the total price of tickets during the jump.
