Ticketmaster Parent Company Live Nation Sued in Landmark Monopolies Lawsuit

Washington
CNN
—

The U.S. government and dozens of states on Thursday sued Live Nation in a landmark antitrust lawsuit, accusing Ticketmaster's parent company of abusing its industry dominance for years to the detriment of concert goers across the country. did.

The long-anticipated lawsuit, filed in New York by the Justice Department and 30 state and local attorneys general, challenges the nation's largest ticket-selling website and concert promoter, which regulators say masterminded a scheme to stifle competition. The governments are seeking a jury trial and the breakup of the company.

If successful, the lawsuit could bring about fundamental changes to the live-events market, an industry that has come under intense scrutiny in 2022 after a Ticketmaster glitch prevented millions from purchasing tickets to Taylor Swift's “Erasure” tour.

For many of Live Nation's critics, the Swift debacle has revealed how a lack of competition has led to damages ranging from poor customer service to confusing pricing, high ticketing fees and restrictions on ticket resales — amounts to a death knell for many consumers.

Prosecutors say Live Nation's ultimate goal is to monopolize the ticket sales and live events industry by entering into exclusive agreements with the nation's largest venues and ensuring that all ticket sales for future events are conducted through its platform. He claims that it was.

“We allege that Live Nation relies on illegal and anti-competitive conduct to exert monopoly control over the U.S. live events industry at the expense of fans, artists, small promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “As a result, fans pay more, artists get fewer opportunities to perform concerts, small promoters are squeezed out, and venues have fewer substantial options for ticketing services. It's time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”

Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Musicians have also complained about Live Nation's tightly integrated operations. Live Nation combines an event ticketing service with management of about 200 popular U.S. venues, a collaboration that critics say allows the company to dictate terms and prices to artists.

In response to the Ticketmaster debacle that outraged fans in 2022, Swift wrote on Instagram that the situation was “excruciating to me” and “upsetting.”

The company has also had feuds with other artists who have criticized Live Nation's practices, including The Cure frontman Robert Smith, who said he was “disgusted” by Ticketmaster's fees. , and country singer Zach Bryan, who released a collection of live performances titled “All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live at Red Rocks)” in 2022.

Now, the U.S. government is challenging Live Nation's economic strength for the first time since it merged with Ticketmaster in 2010. Rather than sue to block the deal, regulators chose to tolerate it at the time, imposing certain obligations on the company aimed at predicting the potential damage the merger could cause.

The lawsuit will be welcomed by antitrust advocates who say they knew the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger would be problematic from the start. Among the lawmakers criticizing the deal are Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who as early as 2019 called for the Department of Justice to investigate Live Nation for breaking promises. Klobuchar, Blumenthal and many other senators, including Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, have introduced a slew of bills to regulate the ticketing industry.

The lawsuit highlights how regulators now believe, more than a decade later, that behavioral changes agreed to by Live Nation have failed.The allegations coincide with the Biden administration's stepped-up antitrust enforcement across the economy, with officials arguing that decades of lax enforcement have led to a wave of consolidation and a decline in consumer power.

According to the complaint, Live Nation directly manages over 400 artists, controls approximately 60% of concert promotions at major concert venues across the United States, and controls over 265 concert venues in North America. Through Ticketmaster, Live Nation also controls approximately 80% or more of the primary ticket sales for concerts at major concert venues, the complaint states.

For fans looking to save money, the crisis isn't over yet: It will likely take years for this lawsuit to work its way through the courts, and until then, the exorbitant fees that fans are all too familiar with are unlikely to be dramatically affected.

The list of states and districts joining Thursday's lawsuit includes Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, according to court records in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

This is a developing story. Will be updated.