The Live Nation-Ticketmaster conglomerate is now under the scrutiny of the Department of Justice for maintaining an illegal monopoly. Whether it’s a concert at Lumen Field, a Mariners game at T-Mobile Stadium, or an event on Capitol Hill, the big live event giant handing out your tickets has now been thrust into its own spotlight after years of skirting the dark side of the stage.
The entertainment industry is a curtained machine of artist management, venue operations, concert promotion, and ticket sales. After a 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the one company now owns and controls every single one of these aspects. The lawsuit, set forth by the DOJ against Live Nation, says they “control around 60% of concert promotion at major concert venues across the country.”
Twenty-nine states, as well as Washington DC, joined the suit asking for a lower South New York district court to break up the 2010 merger, claiming it is in violation of century-old antitrust laws. The DOJ says, “The lawsuit, which includes a request for structural relief, seeks to restore competition in the live concert industry, provide better choices at lower prices for fans, and open venue doors for working musicians and other performance artists.”
The Gorge Amphitheater
The Gorge Amphitheater is owned and operated by Live Nation just outside George, Wash., near the Columbia River.
Live Nation-Ticketmaster does not only control the sale of tickets, but due to contracts with music venues, they limit venues and artists’ use of alternative or rival ticketing sites, lowering competition and forcing people to buy through Ticketmaster. Fans end up paying nearly double the base price in service fees that some call a ‘Ticketmaster tax.’
The base ticket price for lawn tickets at Noah Kahan’s June 29 show at the Gorge Amphitheater averaged $300. After service fees, fans can expect to pay a little over $400 for a single ticket. A $599 pit ticket would be bumped up to $772 after a $187 service fee plus tax.
The Gorge Amphitheater, one of the most notable in Washington, is managed by Live Nation and operated by its many businesses. Artists who play there are required to go through their promoters, ticketing, and management. The fees associated with this practice results in a lower percentage to the artists and higher service fees for the fans.
Live Nation also owns and controls many venues and amphitheaters across the nation. Eighty-eight of the top 100 amphitheaters in the world are in the USA, with 56 of those being owned or operated by Live Nation. That is 64% of control on amphitheaters. They also own or control more than 255 venues in North America.
The suit asks for “the divestiture of, at minimum, Ticketmaster,” in Live Nation’s business. It states “Live Nation-Ticketmaster successfully threatened financial retaliation against a firm unless it stopped one of its subsidiaries from competing.”
Not only has Live Nation acquired many venues as a means of control, they “strategically acquired a number of smaller and regional promoters that it had internally identified as threats. This undermined competition and impacted artists’ compensation.”
Live Nation is but one mega-corporation to be called to the courts. In January, 2023, the DOJ filed charges against Google for its digital advertising technologies claiming the company has used “anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance.”
ABC News
Singer-Songwriter Clyde Lawrence testifies on Live Nation’s business practices and how it eats into artists’ share.
The DOJ has filed against Apple for monopolizing the smartphone market. “Apple’s broad-based, exclusionary conduct makes it harder for Americans to switch smartphones, undermines innovation for apps, products, and services, and imposes extraordinary costs on developers, businesses, and consumers.”
In November of 2022, millions logged onto the Ticketmaster site for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour pre-sale. Within an hour, the site crashed, leaving millions without tickets or in hours-long queues. Many scalpers and bots gained ahold of tickets, posting them on resale sites for thousands of dollars.
Congressional action followed this fiasco. Scalper bots were outlawed in a few state legislations and there was a federal ban on “junk fees” that airlines, hotels, and live events could no longer tack on. A hearing took place that probed into the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, revealing the inner workings of this empire.
The suit will travel to the courts, where a panel of judges will hold a trial. It could be another year or more before that trial begins, and it is certain to be a long one before concert tickets start reflecting higher competition and lower prices.