This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. The New York Times: The Justice Department and a group of states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, as soon as Thursday, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry, said three people familiar with the matter.The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation shored up its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, said two of the people, who declined to be named because the lawsuit was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said. more Not all embedded content is displayed here. You can view the original to see embedded videos and other embedded content.
About time. I took my wife and two daughters to see death cab and the postal service last month for the 20th anniversary tour and had almost 200 hundred dollars in fees for 4 tickets. Beyond ridiculous.
Ticketmaster does not determine the fees. the venues do. Artists set the face value. Venues set the fees. Ticketmaster adds on like 3% to the transaction.
That venue number is actually triple and you would be hard pressed to find a large tour that isn't entirely routed through Live Nation venues
Antitrust enforcement in 2024 is wild I don't expect the Bell System era to return but just anything is a trickle in the sahara
Call me a cynic (especially with all the mergers allowed to go through (I'm glaring at you Microsoft and Activision Blizzard & King) in recent times), but I doubt anything major will come out of this. Would be nice if they did get broken up or were forced to reduce pricing though.