Mitch Jackson, Esq.’s Post

"U.S. Calls for Breakup of Ticketmaster Owner Accused of violating antitrust laws, Live Nation Entertainment faces a fight that could reshape the multibillion-dollar live music industry. The Justice Department on Thursday sued Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, asking a court to break up the company over claims it illegally maintained a monopoly in the live entertainment industry." ..."the government accuses Live Nation of leveraging its sprawling empire to dominate the industry by locking venues into exclusive ticketing contracts, pressuring artists to use its services and threatening its rivals with financial retribution. Those tactics, the government argues, have resulted in higher ticket prices for consumers and have stifled innovation and competition throughout the industry. The suit asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order “the divestiture of, at minimum, Ticketmaster,” and to prevent Live Nation from engaging in anticompetitive practices." #Capitalism requires free and fair competitive markets & prices. And it demands #Accountability & #Justice for #Anticompetitive practices. I am really starting to like these folks at the Justice department, seems like they are quite busy! #Corruption #WhiteCollarCrime #TicketMaster #LiveNation #ArcOfJustice #BendItLikeBeckham

In May, we talked about the impending antitrust lawsuit leveled against LiveNation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) – and now, the details of the suit have been released. This week’s #musicindustry breakdown explores… Quick recap: In April 2024, the DoJ announced a major antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company, LiveNation, following a two-year probe investigating the company for evidence of a monopoly held over the industry since the two companies’ merger in 2010. At the time, critics warned that a merger between the two entertainment giants would essentially put the ticketing and live events industries into a collective chokehold, to the detriment of entertainers, competitors and fans alike. And surprise surprise – it did. Since the merger, ticket costs have risen drastically for consumers who frankly didn’t have many options for ticket providers – why? Well, LiveNation owns/operates 250+ international concert venues, the majority of which use Ticketmaster exclusively for ticket sales. Hmm… 🤔 The antitrust suit filed claims that Live Nation exploited its position as “the gatekeeper for the delivery of nearly all live music in America today” to drive down competition, drive up prices & levy rampant fees & pressure venues into compliance (allegedly). Now, the DoJ has released details on the allegations against LiveNation. Here are just a few: → Retaliating Against Potential Entrants → Threatening & Retaliating Against Venues that Work with Rivals → Locking Out Competition w/Exclusionary Contracts → Blocking Venues from Using Multiple Ticketers → Restricting Artists’ Access to Venues → Acquiring Competitors & Competitive Threats If you’d like to read the complaint in full, you can find it here: https://buff.ly/4bs6Bei For their part, LiveNation maintains that “Ticketmaster has more competition today than it has ever had,” and denies the existence of a monopoly. Moreover, the company claims that the lawsuit will not reduce ticket prices or fees – and that there’s a bigger issue… In one article, Dan Wall, Live Nation Executive Vice President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs stated that the lawsuit against the company only “distracts from real solutions that would decrease prices and protect fans - like letting artists cap resale prices.” The lawsuit is ongoing, and we’ll be sure to keep up with developments as they occur. In the meantime we’re curious – do you think the suit will stand up in court? If so, what major changes do you expect to see in the ticketing and live entertainment industry?

New Post: U.S. Justice Department moves to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation over antitrust violations - https://lnkd.in/gh3_Z3iQ - Good news for anyone who's ever found themselves in the Ticketmaster trenches: The U.S. Justice Department seeks to break up Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster's parent company, over antitrust law violations. The lawsuit, filed this morning (May 23), alleges that the music giant illegally controls a monopoly in live entertainment by engaging in long-term exclusive contracts with venues and threatening financial retribution against venues and artists who use Ticketmaster. It argues that these practices violate antitrust laws and drive up ticket prices. According to The New York Times, the lawsuit aims to break up the monopoly. SEE ALSO: Meet the Swifties trying to take down Ticketmaster "We allege that 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 statement. "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-Ticketmaster."Live Nation denies that its practices violate antitrust laws. SEE ALSO: For fans, Ticketmaster is misery business Ticketmaster, the largest ticket-selling company in the country, merged with Live Nation in 2010. At the time, Ticketmaster operated roughly 70 percent of the concert ticket market in the U.S., and Live Nation was the world's largest concert promoter. The tides turned against Ticketmaster in 2022 when the site crashed during presale for Taylor Swift's wildly popular Eras Tour. The company said it was overwhelmed by unprecedented demand for tickets and attacks by bots. But fans swiftly turned against the ticketing giant, which eventually led to the government getting involved. - #news #business #world -------------------------------------------------- Download: Stupid Simple CMS - https://lnkd.in/g4y9XFgR -------------------------------------------------- or download at SourceForge - https://lnkd.in/gNqB7dnp

The Department of Justice suing Live Nation Entertainment for antitrust violations is for politics and optics and it is not legit. Here's why: 1. The standard for an antitrust violation is: Are prices higher for consumers? In this case: NO. Concert ticket fees have gone *down*, relative to inflation, since the 2010 merger. 2. Ticket prices are not set by Ticketmaster. 3. Because of Live Nation's powerful monetization apparatus and Ticketmaster's scale, their fees are, on average, lower than other ticket brokers. 3. There's been many references to Taylor Swift in this reporting. She’s had dates promoted by AEG. None by Live Nation. What are we doing here, people. 4. Again, ticket prices are not set by Ticketmaster!! It's an election year. The administration is trying to fight inflation with these "look, we're protecting the consumer" stories. See: the airline industry. There's nothing to see here. This is political, the DOJ is not going to win this, and they know it. #musicindustry #musicbusiness #touring #livemusic #livenation

On May 23, the DOJ and 30 state attorneys general sued Live Nation/Ticketmaster to make right the merger approval wrong that was made in 2010. Americans now appreciate how pervasive the monopolistic abuses are, the data the company harvests about fans, and the throttling powers Ticketmaster has on its competing ticket sellers. I am proud of our work to help launch of the BreakUp Ticketmaster campaign, which delivered more than 100,000 fans demanding action of the Justice Department. Live music is my fuel. Last year I attended more than 50 shows and being present when AC/DC took the stage for the first time in 8 years was a gift! Being on stage in front of 15,000 fans recently with an internationally acclaimed rock band and looking out at the crowd reminded me of why our ticketing policy work at Vision360 Partners is so important. Bit by bit we are improving the market that connects those fans with the shows and games they love. We have worked with professional sports leagues, with Broadway theater producers, and in the ticketing side of the live events industry since 2016. I serve as Advocacy Director of Protect Ticket Rights and Vision360 has been working hard to also launch and manage the Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights and its coalition of national and state consumer protection advocates, to advance meaningful reforms at the state and federal levels. We are making progress! In true David vs. Goliath form, we have beaten back special interest legislation cleverly shrouded in consumer benefit that hides handouts and advantages to Ticketmaster and its venue and music artist partners (to be sure, not all venues and artists and their proxies are to blame). We convinced a governor to veto a bad bill last year and pass a better bill this year that will soon become law and improve the ticket buying experience for fans in the state. We de-fanged anticompetitive bills in several states in 2024 and in the U.S. Senate. Despite challenges from a well-resourced set of adversaries, we passed an entirely pro-consumer bill out of the House of Representatives this year on a 388-24 bipartisan basis! We are proud to work with a coalition that trusts in our advice and strategy, and we benefit from having the facts and fans at the core of our many successes. Whether it’s earned media, digital advocacy, grassroots mobilization, coalition building, or government relations, we’ve laid it all on the table. The fight is far from over, but this fan is fortunate to be a public affairs pro backed by a team that won’t rest until the job gets done. Our clients are seriously fortunate that as a private company we answer to them and not shareholders. This week is a week to celebrate, before we get back to the campaign trail to fix what is broken in ticketing. Bravo, team Vision360 Partners!

If you're a music fan, you know all too well just how difficult and expensive it can be to purchase concert tickets nowadays. But an impending antitrust lawsuit by the DOJ against Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment seeks to promote competition and provide consumers with relief. While the lawsuit will target anti-competitive practices, true relief for fans may require stricter regulation of secondary ticket markets, as seen in Europe. 🎟️🛡️ Check out my blog to learn how this development could reshape the concert ticketing landscape! #Ticketmaster #DOJ #Concerts #ConsumerProtection

AEG CEO Jay Marciano Calls Live Nation A Monopoly, Predicts DOJ Victory in Lawsuit https://ift.tt/Dex5FaN AEG chairman/CEO Jay Marciano says Live Nation acts like a monopoly and agrees with the U.S. Department of Justice’s effort to break the concert giant and Ticketmaster up, according to an email Marciano sent out to employees on Friday (May 31). In the memo, the executive accuses the company of “preventing other businesses from competing” and “leaving consumers to suffer the consequences.” In the two-page email, Marciano said the lawsuit was an important milestone for addressing alleged monopolistic behavior in the concert business, noting “the entire ecosystem of our industry” is at stake as the case winds its way through the U.S. legal system. Related To Understand Live Nation's Real Antitrust Issue, Look to Microsoft 05/31/2024 “Notwithstanding its claims about its profit margins or its market share, it is a monopoly, and it uses its monopoly power to impose its will on the live entertainment business,” wrote Marciano of Live Nation, later writing, “We strongly believe that DOJ’s lawsuit will succeed and ultimately bring sweeping changes.” Billboard obtained a copy of the email, which can be read in full below. An AEG spokesman did not respond to a request for comment regarding the letter. Live Nation had not responded to a request for comment at press time. From: Office of Jay Marciano No doubt all of you are closely following the ongoing media coverage in the wake of the Department of Justice lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. As I mentioned in my note from last week, we spent the last few days carefully reviewing the DOJ filing, as well as Live Nation’s subsequent response to the complaint. AEG has long maintained that Ticketmaster has a monopoly in the U.S. ticketing marketplace and uses that monopoly power to subsidize Live Nation’s content businesses, preventing other businesses from competing in those areas and leaving consumers to suffer the consequences. This lawsuit is not simply DOJ suing to break up a monopoly; at stake is the entire ecosystem of our industry, one that has long suffered from a badly broken ticketing model. As you know, the cornerstone of Live Nation’s monopoly is Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with the vast majority of major concert venues in the United States. These agreements block competition and innovation and result in higher ticketing fees, denying artists the ability to choose who will ticket their shows and how much their fans should pay. Following the DOJ filing, Live Nation issued several public comments in service of its ongoing strategy to maintain its dominance – unfairly blaming others for industry problems they have created, making false and misleading statements, and dismissing the significance of the case. Artists, venues, and brokers are not responsible for the broken live entertainment business model in this country – that res...

The problem here is a much larger one that permeates American society. When the marketplaces we build do not adhere to free-market principles they will fail systemically. Similar anticompetitive endeavors are omnipresent in technology innovation, the airline industry, the clothing industry, you name it. Government is responsible for establishing the theory that determines what can be discovered. We must establish a theory that determines the workings of all marketplaces, not just the Ticketmaster one. To go after one is the denial of a bigger governmental responsibility. Read up on an article on the subject I wrote in 2008 here: https://lnkd.in/efS3sXNe

Those of you who know me probably know I love stats (odd, I know). As the final straw before this lawsuit, people point at the Swift tour ticketing situation and revel in showing videos of young (and some not so young) fans melting down over not getting tickets. What they don’t show are the ~2.5M people who DID get tickets - pretty much every single one available on the tour. With ~15M registered fans, do the math: 5 out of 6 registered fans would have never gotten a ticket (even setting aside logistics of where those 15M were distributed relative to the locations of the shows) because there were only so many tickets. Add in the surge of automated demand and you can see how there were always going to be more people crying than rejoicing. Taylor Swift would have had to do 6X the number of shows just to have enough seats for every registered fan to go once. That’s if no casual fans or professional scalpers got a single ticket. It’s unfortunate some people had to “settle” for seeing the concert at the multiplex instead of the stadium, but there is no ticketing platform or promoter that could have conjured up enough capacity to meet demand. For more insights on the entire situation, take the time to read this analysis. I look forward to the inevitable resolution and hope the effort will result in refocusing Congress on the pursuit of real solutions to the real problems (hint, I don’t think they’re going to amend the Constitution to require Taylor to remain on tour until everyone’s had a chance to see her live).

The latest in a series of aggressive #antitrust enforcement efforts by DOJ to combat anticompetitive practices. Excellent blog post related to the #Ticketmaster #LiveNation lawsuit by my colleagues Xan Wolstenholme-Britt and John McKnight. Thanks to Danya R. for leading the ongoing discussions on this matter.