U.S. suing Ticketmaster owner Live Nation
Canadians are hopeful that a U.S. lawsuit against con‐ cert promoter Live Nation will provide some relief to cash-strapped fans and musicians.
The U.S. Justice Depart‐ ment (DOJ) and a group of 30 states and the District of Co‐ lumbia on Thursday sued to break up Live Nation, arguing the big concert promoter and its Ticketmaster unit illegally inflated concert ticket prices and hurt artists.
"It is time to break up Live Nation," said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Shae Harding, a Taylor Swift fan and mom of two in Langley, B.C., says she could‐ n't get through the Ticket‐ master website to get tickets to the Vancouver concert for herself and her two daugh‐ ters when they went on sale in November, calling the situ‐ ation "kind of a nightmare."
Thousands of Swifties were left in a similar position, and tickets were quickly posted for resale at exorbi‐ tant prices, some exceeding $26,000.
Harding eventually got tickets through a friend at face value, which was $175 apiece for nosebleeds.
"Something has to be done to stop this, because it's just going to kill concerts. I mean, I've seen tickets go for thousands, tens of thou‐ sands of dollars for one tick‐ et and that's insane to me. That's just not right," she told CBC Thursday.
Harding said she is thank‐ ful for her friend getting the tickets, but will forever have a sour taste in her mouth when it comes to Ticketmas‐ ter.
WATCH | About That's Andrew Chang lays out the argument for dismantling the company:
Concert fans and politi‐ cians for years have been calling for a re-examination of Live Nation's acquisition of Ticketmaster in 2010, espe‐ cially after the ticket seller botched sales in 2022 to Swift's first tour in years, sending fans into hours-long online queues, charging prices that customers said were too high and drawing charges of poor service.
The debacle prompted congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures aimed at better protecting consumers.
Thursday's legal action underscores the aggressive approach U.S. President Joe Biden's antitrust enforcers have adopted as they seek to create more competition in a wide range of industries, from Big Tech to health care to groceries.
"Live Nation relies on un‐ lawful, anti-competitive con‐ duct to exercise its monopo‐ listic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters and venue operators," Gar‐ land said. He went on to say that as a result fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to per‐ form and smaller promoters get squeezed out.
Shares of Live Nation were down 7.8 per cent at close Thursday.
'Vast scope' of influence and control
The suit says Live Nation directly manages more than 400 musical artists and con‐ trols around 60 per cent of concert promotions at major venues. It owns or controls more than 265 concert venues in North America, and through Ticketmaster controls roughly 80 per cent or more of big venues' pri‐ mary ticketing for concerts.
In the lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, the DOJ argued the "vast scope" of Live Nation and Ticketmaster allowed them to "insert themselves at the centre and the edges of virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem."
The Justice Department accuses Live Nation of a slew of practices that allow it to maintain a stronghold over the live music scene, includ‐ ing using long-term contracts to keep venues from choos‐ ing rival ticketers, blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues that they could lose money and fans if they don't choose Ticketmaster.
The Justice Department says Live Nation also threat‐ ened to retaliate against one firm if it didn't stop a sub‐ sidiary from competing for artist promotion contracts.
WATCH | U.S. attorney general says 'it is time' to break up Live Nation:
Live Nation called the suit a possible "PR win for the DOJ in the short term," but said the entertainment com‐ pany would prevail in court. The lawsuit "won't solve the issues fans care about relat‐ ing to ticket prices, service fees and access to in-de‐ mand shows."
"There is more competi‐ tion than ever in the live events market," it added.
Andrew Cash, president and CEO of the Canadian in‐ dependent music associa‐ tion, says it's about time gov‐ ernments confront this issue.
He told CBC that small and mid-size venues are being squeezed out by Live Nation in Canada, which hurts the artists that rely on those venues.
"It would be a much more healthy and competitive at‐ mosphere in the music ecosystem if there were more players, if there were more promoters, if there were more small and medi‐ um-sized promoters out there," Cash said.
Canada also approved 2010 merger
In 2010, the U.S. Justice Department approved Ticket‐ master's controversial merger with Live Nation, with conditions intended to stop the combined company from harming competition, includ‐ ing that Live Nation agree not to retaliate against concert venues for using other ticket companies for 10 years. Canada's Competition Bu‐ reau also approved the merger.
In 2019, the DOJ investi‐ gated and found that Live Nation had "repeatedly" vio‐ lated that agreement and ex‐ tended the prohibition on re‐ taliating against concert venues to 2025. That same year, Canada's Competition Bureau ordered Ticketmaster to pay a penalty of $4.5 mil‐ lion Cdn for misleading cus‐ tomers on online ticket sales, but also ruled the company's practice of recruiting scalpers to secretly purchase and re‐ sell Ticketmaster tickets for inflated costs was legal.
In 2020, a court extended most of the DOJ's oversight of the merger to 2025 be‐ cause, the department said, Ticketmaster retaliated against stadiums and arenas that opted to use other tick‐ eting companies.
Live Nation has said in the past that it was confident its business practices were legal, and that the probe had been prompted by complaints from rivals, including re‐ sellers.
When it was reported that the company was under fed‐ eral investigation in 2022, the concert promoter said in a statement that Ticketmaster enjoys such a large share of the market because of "the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmas‐ ter system and the next best primary ticketing system."
But competitor ticket sell‐ ers have long complained that Live Nation makes it dif‐ ficult for them to disrupt the market with practices such as withholding acts if those venues don't agree to use Ticketmaster's service.
University of Victoria eco‐ nomics professor Pascal Courty says breaking up the companies would give artists more options, and could lead to some innovation and a small decrease in ticket prices.
"Now that we have an in‐ vestigation, we're going to find out a lot. And that's
going to allow us to under‐ stand the depth of the prob‐ lem," Courty told CBC.
"I think we need to break up the stronghold between venue promotion and ticket‐ ing. Then we might want to also break up ticketing by re‐ gion, or so that we encour‐ age competition."
He says Live Nation could still try to maintain a monop‐ oly in Canada even if it is forced to break up in the U.S., at which point the Com‐ petition Bureau would have to decide how to proceed.
Canada's recent federal budget document mentions high ticket prices at concerts and sporting events, and says the federal government will work with provinces and territories to adopt best prac‐ tices that reduce unexpected charges and crack down on fraudulent sellers, but does not offer any plan to intro‐ duce enforceable measures.