Department of Justice announces antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster owner Live Nation – NBC 7 San Diego

The Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, accusing the world’s largest concert promoter and ticketing company of operating an illegal monopoly and calling for an end to its merger with Ticketmaster.

Attorneys general from 29 states and Washington, D.C., joined the federal government in its legal challenge

“Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exert monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the expense of fans, artists, smaller promoters and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in announcing the lawsuit. “As a result, fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play shows, smaller promoters are squeezed out and venues have less real choice in ticketing services. It’s time to break up Live Nation.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Live Nation has weakened competition for live event ticket sales by displacing smaller promoters. This comes 14 years after the Justice Department allowed Live Nation to acquire Ticketmaster, creating a live events conglomerate with unparalleled power and sparking competition concerns among consumer advocates.

At the time, the agency approved the merger under a 10-year consent decree that imposed conditions on the merger, including: imposing a ban on Live Nation threatening to suspend concerts at venues that choose another ticketing company to manage sales. In 2019, the consent decree was extended through 2025 after the Justice Department found that Live Nation had repeatedly violated the terms of the merger.

In Thursday’s lawsuit, the Department of Justice accuses Live Nation of working with the venue’s management company to trick customers into signing contracts solely to use Ticketmaster. Oak View was co-founded by former Live Nation president Irving Azoff and oversees dozens of arenas around the world, according to NBC News.

It also alleges that Live Nation continues to violate the terms of the consent decree by eliminating other concert promotion companies through threats of retaliation or by acquiring startups it sees as potential competitors. The Justice Department found that Live Nation maintains a stronghold in the live music scene by using long-term contracts to prevent venues from selecting competing ticketing companies and threatening venues to withhold artists from venues if they do not select Ticketmaster as their exclusive reseller . Live Nation was also found to have threatened retaliation against one company if it did not stop its subsidiary from bidding for artist promotion contracts.

“America’s live music industry is broken because Live Nation-Ticketmaster has an illegal monopoly,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. “Our antitrust lawsuit seeks to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly and restore competition to the benefit of fans and artists.”

In a statement to NBC, Live Nation denied engaging in antitrust practices and said it would defend itself against the Justice Department’s “baseless allegations.”

“The Department of Justice’s lawsuit will not address fans’ concerns about ticket prices, service fees and access to in-demand programming,” Live Nation said. “Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR victory for the Justice Department in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores basic principles of the live entertainment economy, such as the fact that most service fees go to venues and that competition continually erodes share of the market and Ticketmaster’s profit margin.”

The decision follows the Biden administration’s promise to promote competition by cracking down on corporate monopolies and their anti-competitive practices.

Ticketmaster came under intense scrutiny in 2022 after its website crashed during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour pre-sale event. The company said its site had been overwhelmed both by fans and attacks by bots posing as consumers to obtain tickets and sell them on secondary sites. Thousands of people lost their tickets after waiting in online queues for hours.

The debacle led to a congressional hearing in which the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, which oversees competition policy and antitrust issues, examined Ticketmaster’s outsize role in the ticketing industry at the expense of consumers.

The senators also took into account Ticketmaster’s fees. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, recalls how, in high school, she boarded a friend’s car to go to Led Zeppelin, The Cars and Aerosmith concerts. She said ticket prices are so high these days that the shows are too expensive for many fans. Klobuchar said ticket fees currently average 27% of the ticket price and could go up to 75%.

Live Nation has previously defended its fees and ticket prices, claiming that “promoters don’t set prices, artists do.”

However, competitors such as Seat Geek CEO Jack Groetzinger argue that even if Live Nation does not own the facility, it prevents competition by signing multi-year contracts with arenas and concert venues to provide ticketing services. If these venues do not agree to use Ticketmaster, Live Nation may suspend performances. This makes it harder for competitors to disrupt the market.

Ticketmaster is the world’s largest ticket seller, handling 500 million tickets annually in over 30 countries. About 70% of major U.S. concert hall tickets are sold through Ticketmaster, according to a federal lawsuit filed by consumers last year.

“Ticketmaster should look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me,'” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Ticketmaster fiasco.