Uncle Sam's had enough of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, sues to end monopoly The US Department of Justice, in the company of 30 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust complaint against Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster subsidiary today, claiming the entertainment giant has suppressed competition by monopolizing the concert market. "We allege that Live Nation relies …
Even before the merger, AEG livenation and Ticketmaster had the market stitched up. After the storm of the last Ticketmaster trial blew over, they were careful to carve out a symbolic selection of venues they didn't control. That's not a meaningful gauge here, it's just a straw man.
Ticketmaster's role has continued to shift over the years, and in the current version they are the punchable face to what most people hate about the modern music industry. Don't fall for it. Yeah they are eminently hateable, the fees are bullshit, their website uses every dark pattern and fraudulent trick in the book.
But that is a small part of the problem. The other two legs of the cartel own a ton of big venues, and have others locked into us or them contracts. Sports, concerts, venues, large festivals and most of the acts from whole music companies all tied together. Each paying kickbacks to Ticketmaster, the labels, the venues and in many cases the bands. Money shifts around to evade oversight, and help the record industries notorious accounting practices to siphon all the revenue past operating costs into tax havens and shady accounting.
At the core of it, driving the core of all of this and driving both costs and desperation is the fact that huge amounts of tickets have been presold or preallocated. Some go to the venue, some to the promoter, the band, the label, and a constellation of other players. This causes the show to instantly sell out, when Ticketmaster steps in and double dips by taking a cut when these players trickle their pre-allocated tickets into the marketplace at a healthy premium.
If you want a nuts and bolts breakdown of exactly how the cartel operates, take a look at the excellent reporting on the flows of tickets for the recent Justin Bieber tour instead of Swift. She is venting because Ticketmaster screwed up her presale and pissed off her exceedingly rabid fans, which she didn't appreciate. Bieber was in on the whole thing, and as big a willing participant as anyone else. (He also used to spit on his own fans, so is it a surprise?).
Any company or cartel of companies that controls both the vertical market and most of the horizontal market needs to be broken up. AEG and Live Nation ows venues, tours, sports teams, events and management. By tying control of those assets to ticketing, they control the allocation, sale, and resale. Any attempt to blame resellers is a farce. They extract a cut from resold tickets, and were caught telling the resellers they themselves blamed to create multiple accounts to get around changes that Ticketmaster was making to ensure the resale status quo was maintained. Acts that make waves or don't want to play get shut out of a huge swath of venues, as well as participating in group shows and festivals.
You forgot the "facility use fee".
Don't forget the fees they charge bands as well. This chappie has been a roadie, guitar tech, tour mananger and more and makes some good videos explaining how the industry works. Or doesn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erhIiaXdY2s
which covers LN's response to complaints about LN's venues trousering lots of the merch sales bands make. And LN seems to dominate the places bands can play, and TM dominates the ticket sales.
... and now they are using demand-led pricing too. I recently tried to get tickets for a popular stadium gig that was nearing being sold out, on Ticketmaster identical tickets were nearly twice the price of the venue's preferred ticket agent (before the fees had been added on)
So how the fuck do the likes of Skiddle, AXS, Fatsoma and Dice survive when their fees come to a couple of quid?
Add in the fact many of these let you sell on your ticket, only at face value. Some even give you cooling off periods, so you can panic buy for a gig. Find you friends can't make it and get a full refund.
They make little profit, because they CHOOSE to make little profit
"Sure, ticket prices are high, the biz says, but Live Nation and Ticketmaster aren't to blame."
So, they blame everyone else but being so large and pervasive, Shirley that means they should be cheaper than everyone else, not more expensive, and should be able the batter compete on price than the smaller operations who don't own venues and have acts on contract.
The ruling 'class' is well greased by TicketMa$ter and LiveNation so they have been allowed this grotesquely huge money farm which enables them to tithe heavily to the ruling 'class'.
The ruling 'class' is well aware they are looking to lose the upcoming November election and is desperately looking for votes.
Doubt any real damage will be done to TicketMa$ter and LiveNation's income because this is just another political ploy.
"Colluding with rivals to avoid bidding against each other for artists and venues; retaliating against potential competitors and venues that work with rivals; exclusionary contracts; preventing venues from using multiple ticketing services; preventing artists from using venues if they haven't signed on for promotional services; and acquiring competitors."
So...business as usual, then?
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