Following a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit, fans file a $5 billion class action lawsuit against Live Nation

On Thursday, Live Nation and Ticketmaster were hit with a consumer class action lawsuit. The lawsuit follows a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust case filed earlier this week.

The first of what is likely to be a wave of related lawsuits has been filed in federal court in Manhattan, seeking $5 billion in damages to potentially millions of ticket buyers.

If the number of consumer cases increases quickly, it would increase legal pressure on the concert and ticketing giant as it battles the Justice Department for the right to remain a combined company.

“Over the past three decades, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have together built empires in several key markets within the concert and live event economy,” the new lawsuit alleges. “Live Nation has grown
concert and event promotion giant, and Ticketmaster captured the primary and secondary
concert and event ticketing markets in the United States.”

“As a result of this merger,” the filing continues, “the new entity now dominates three major business entities
markets in the United States: (1) promotion of concerts in major concert halls, (2) basic ticket sales
services for main concert halls1 and (3) secondary ticketing services for main concert halls.”

Bruce Houghton is the founder and editor of Hypebot, senior advisor at Bandsintown, president of Skyline Artists Agency, and professor at Berklee College Of Music.