The United States Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, for alleged antitrust practices.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, creating a dominant entertainment engine that controls the majority of ticket sales and venue bookings in the country. But Taylor Swift fans’ experience buying tickets for her late 2022 Eras tour was so horrific that lawmakers took a closer look at the entertainment giant’s control of the industry — the presale was fraught with glitches and hours-long wait times, while the public sale was canceled due to heavy traffic.
“Live Nation stifles its competition using a variety of tactics, from acquisitions of smaller regional promoters and venues, to threats and retaliation in agreements with rivals,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Thursday.
This isn’t just a Swiftie problem — rather, the pop star’s cultural ubiquity shines a bright light on people’s frustration with Live Nation-Ticketmaster. From punk bands to podcast hosts, bad experiences with Ticketmaster have made the company loathed by fans. In April, when the actual Dungeons & Dragons Dimension 20 show went on sale for its Madison Square Garden show, Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing structure made ticket prices so astronomically high that they were out of reach for most fans. Dropout, the company that produces Dimension 20, later said that dynamic pricing – which automatically increases ticket prices based on demand – was not explained to them before tickets went on sale.
Live Nation executive vice president Dan Wall posted one statement responding to allegations in the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
“The complaint — and even more so the press conference that announced it — attempts to portray Live Nation and Ticketmaster as the cause of fans’ frustration with the live entertainment industry,” the statement said. “It blames concert promoters and ticketing companies – none of which control ticket prices – for high ticket prices. It ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from rising production costs to the popularity of artists, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public’s willingness to pay far more than the original ticket cost.
Wall goes on to compare Ticketmaster’s 5% take rate to that of companies like Twitch (50%), StubHub (37%), Uber (25%) and many others. But with the exception of StubHub — a resale platform — the comparisons aren’t quite one-to-one. Ticketmaster also charges various types of service fees, which exceed 5%. The fact remains that it’s difficult for newer companies to disrupt Live Nation’s dominance of the industry, as the vast majority of US venues work with them.
Garland claims that public frustration with Live Nation’s alleged monopolistic behavior is stronger in America than in other countries.
“In other countries, where venues are not bound by Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts, venues often use multiple ticketing companies for the same event, and fans see lower fees and more innovative ticketing products as a result,” Garland said.
