Locally, we might have had our challenges with Live Nation, the largest concert provider in the nation, which during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic began to promote ticket sales for its Seven Peaks Music Festival exceeding the approved number. That decision cost them the approval of the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners and the concert departed this county, moving south to the San Luis Valley.
But it now appears the U.S. Department of Justice has a bigger bone to pick with Live Nation, over its merger with Ticketmaster.
The Justice Dept. is now preparing to file an antitrust suit against the concert giant’s 2010 merger, on the basis that it has stifled ticketing competition. They believe that the behemoth should be broken up because it has used its size to dominate ticketing pricing and access.
On the surface, big might be passed off as “good” at least that’s the message from corporate America. But in 2022 as the pandemic waned and the biggest concert tour in history (by none other than Taylor Swift) came into focus, the Ticketmaster site began to crash and people who sat for hours on line waiting to buy tickets were dropped out of line. There were few other avenues for ticket sales, and an entire generation of fans (and beyond) had a meltdown exceeded only by the Ticketmaster debacle.
Live Nation continues to claim it isn’t a monopoly; it says that because it’s the artists and their marketing teams that set prices, it doesn’t, so it isn’t a monopoly. Ticketmaster says it has more competition now than it ever did. But as of this past year, Ticketmaster holds 80 percent of all primary ticket sales in the U.S., and it has exclusive ticketing contracts.
At the heart of the antitrust case is the pressure that the Dept. of Justice says has been aimed at concert venues, forcing them to use the Ticketmaster ticketing subsidiary. The conditions of the 2010 federal settlement agreement made with Live Nation over their merger were supposed to expire in 2020. But the deal got extended to 2025 so that Live Nation couldn’t withhold shows from venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Now, with anti-trust legislation pending, more uncertainty is looming for the entertainment giant.
Perhaps the loss of Seven Peaks wasn’t such a bad thing.
Recent Comments