DOJ files antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation over alleged monopoly

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The Justice Department announced an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, accusing the world's largest concert promoter and ticketing company of monopolistic practices and calling to break up its merger with Ticketmaster.

The federal government was joined in its legal challenge by attorneys general for 29 states and Washington, D.C.

“Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Souther District of New York, alleges that Live Nation has undermined competition for ticketing live events. It comes 14 years after the DOJ allowed Live Nation to acquire Ticketmaster, creating a live-event conglomerate of unrivaled power and sparking competition concerns among consumer advocates.

At the time, the agency approved the merger through a 10-year consent decree — which imposed conditions on the merger, including that Live Nation was prohibited from threatening to withhold concerts from a venue that choose a different ticketing firm to manage the sales. In 2019, the consent decree was extended to 2025 after the Justice Department found Live Nation repeatedly violated conditions of the merger.

The move comes as the Biden administration has vowed 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 a pre-sale event for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. The company said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers in order to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. Thousands of people lost tickets after waiting for hours in an online queue.

The debacle led to a congressional hearing, with the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that oversees competition policy and antitrust issues scrutinizing the outsized role of Ticketmaster in the ticketing industry at a cost to consumers.

Senators also took aim at Ticketmaster's fees. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, recalled piling into a friend’s car in high school to go to concerts by Led Zeppelin, The Cars and Aerosmith. These days, she said, ticket prices have gotten so high that shows are too expensive for many fans. Klobuchar said ticket fees now average 27% of the ticket cost and can climb as high as 75%.

Live Nation has previously defended its fees and ticket pricing, saying "promoters don't set prices, artists do."

But competitors, like Seat Geek CEO Jack Groetzinger, said even if Live Nation doesn't own a venue, it prevents competition by signing multi-year contracts with arenas and concert halls to provide ticketing services. If those venues don't agree to use Ticketmaster, Live Nation may withhold acts. That makes it tough for competitors to disrupt the market.

Ticketmaster is the world’s largest ticket seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries. Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the U.S. are sold through Ticketmaster, according to data in a federal lawsuit filed by consumers last year.

"Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, 'I'm the problem, it's me,'" Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday during the Senate Judiciary Committee's Ticketmaster ticket debacle hearing.