The feds vowed Thursday to crack down on music industry behemoth Live Nation after concertgoers complained for years about ridiculously high fees and unobtainable tickets, particularly for Taylor Swift’s recent Eras tour.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice, along with 30 states, has filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, “relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopoly control over the live events industry at the expense of fans, artists, small promoters and venue operators.” America.”
“The result is that fans pay more, artists are less likely to play concerts, smaller promoters are pushed out, and there are fewer real choices for ticketing services,” Garland said in a statement. “It’s time to break Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
The lawsuit alleges that Live Nation created a cyclical business model in which it could exert complete control over the industry. It takes fees and revenue from concert attendees and sponsorships, then uses that revenue to pressure artists into exclusive promotional deals, which it then uses to pressure venues into long-term exclusive deals. Those contracts allegedly prevented venues from switching to better or cheaper ticketing systems, or from using multiple ticketing companies for events. Competitors have been threatened with financial retaliation, the suit alleges. After all, it results in higher ticket prices for fans and stifles competition.
Dan Wall, Live Nation’s executive VP of corporate and regulatory affairs, called the allegations “ridiculous.” “It blames concert promoters and ticketing companies—neither of which control ticket prices—for high ticket prices. It ignores everything that actually causes high ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity to 24/7 online ticket scalping, which is more than the cost of primary tickets. It reflects the public’s willingness to pay more,” he said in a statement.
Ticketmaster, which controls more than 70 percent of the market for tickets and live events, handled the launch of Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour. But the site crashed on the first day of sales, leaving millions of fans unable to secure tickets until they hit the resale market at sky-high prices.
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