The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing Live Nation, arguing that the major concert promoter and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have been “monopolizing” the live events industry.
The antitrust lawsuit was filed Thursday by the Justice Department, 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “It’s time to disband Live Nation.”
The entertainment company merged with Ticketmaster in 2010. Through Ticketmaster, Live Nation now controls approximately 80% or more of major venue concert tickets, the lawsuit says.
A Live Nation spokesperson said the company would defend itself “against these baseless allegations” and said the Justice Department would lose in court because the case “ignores the basic economics of live entertainment.”
Ticketmaster, which overwhelmingly dominates the ticketing industry, has for years left fans and artists frustrated by hidden fees, rising costs and limited ticket availability due to pre-sales.
His dominance in the industry. was under the scrutiny of American politicians in 2022when Ticketmaster was forced to cancel its general ticket sale for Taylor Swift long-awaited Eras tour due to “extraordinarily high demands.”
At the time, the superstar criticized Ticketmaster on social mediasaying it was “unbearable for me to just watch mistakes being made without any recourse” after Swift fans reported long wait times and site outages during pre-sales.
The star said 2.4 million fans had been able to buy tickets, which was “really amazing… but it really bothers me that a lot of them feel like they’ve gone through several bear attacks to get them.”
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Thursday’s legal action underscores aggressive approach President Joe Biden Antitrust authorities have taken steps that seek to create more competition in a wide range of industries, from “big tech” to health care and food.
In March, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the tech giant has monopoly power in the smartphone market.
“Live Nation relies on illegal and anti-competitive conduct to exert its monopoly control over the live events industry.
in the United States at the expense of fans, artists, small promoters and venue operators,” said Mr. Garland.
He added that as a result, fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to perform and smaller promoters are left out.
The lawsuit says Live Nation directly manages more than 400 music artists and controls about 60% of concert promotions at major venues.
It also owns or controls more than 265 concert venues in North America.
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In 2010, the Department of Justice approved Ticketmaster’s controversial merger with Live Nation, with conditions laid out.
to prevent the merged company from harming competition.
In 2020, a court extended most of the Justice Department’s oversight of the merger until 2025 because, according to the department, Ticketmaster
retaliated against stadiums and arenas that chose to use other ticketing companies.
Live Nation has said in the past that it was confident its business practices were legal and that the investigation had been prompted by complaints from rivals, including resellers.
A company spokesperson said Thursday that the lawsuit “will not resolve the issues that fans are concerned about regarding ticket prices, service fees and access to highly sought-after shows.”
Live Nation added that “calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a public relations victory for the Justice Department in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment,” stating that most fees of service go to the places.
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