The debacle led to a hearing in the united states senate on consolidation in the ticketing industry. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to dissolve Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which it accused of abusing their alleged ticket sales monopoly to trample their competitors.
In a statement provided to WIRED at the time, Live Nation disputed the claim. “The Department of Justice’s lawsuit will not resolve the issues that concern fans regarding ticket prices, service fees, and access to highly sought-after shows,” the company wrote. “Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a public relations victory for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment, such as the fact that most of the service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin.”
The original lawsuit filed by Swift fans accused Ticketmaster and Live Nation of breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation and antitrust violations. The complaint alleges that Ticketmaster broke its promise to make tickets available to fans who qualified for the pre-sale. Meanwhile, by entering into exclusivity contracts with major venues and forcing fans to resell tickets through its own resale marketplace, the lawsuit claims, Ticketmaster established a monopoly that it exercises to inflate ticket prices for its own financial benefit. .
“This case concerns Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive conduct by imposing higher prices on music concert attendees in the pre-sale, sale and resale market,” the complaint states. “Ticketmaster has carried out this anti-competitive scheme by forcing musicians’ fans to use Ticketmaster exclusively for pre-sale and sales prices, which are above what would be a competitive market price.”
The new lawsuit is nearly identical to the original federal case, but expands the scope to include fans of artists other than Taylor Swift and adds an alleged RICO violation to the list. The new indictment is based on the premise that Ticketmaster and Live Nation coordinate with partner organizations to exert market dominance and squeeze consumers in a manner that meets the definition of “enterprise” under the RICO Act.
“Live Nation and Ticketmaster exploit the relationship with each other and with stadiums largely owned by Live Nation to achieve their corporate purpose, and have been doing so since the Department of Justice recklessly approved their merger nearly a decade and a half ago. . does,” the complaint states.