HARTFORD, CT – Attorney General William Tong announced Thursday that Connecticut has joined the federal government and 29 other attorneys general in an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging monopoly conditions have led to exorbitant fees for consumers.
“I think all of us know that Ticketmaster and Live Nation is a monopoly. We live it, we feel it, we breathe it, in the same way that when we announced our antitrust actions against Amazon, Apple, Google. I don’t have to prove it to you, right?” Tong said at a news conference Thursday, but he went ahead and outlined what he and the US Department of Justice believe are the factors tha
Tong said Live Nation and Ticketmaster control 80% of all ticketing for major concert venues. They also control 60% of concert promotions at major concert venues across the country, 70% of concert tickets at major concert venues, and 65% of primary tickets sold at large amphitheaters. The company also owns or controls 265 concert venues in North America and 60 of the top 100 amphitheaters.
“So as you can see, they’re not just focused on ticketing. It’s that Ticketmaster plus Live Nation enables them to dominate at the venue level, at the promotion level, at the artist representation level, at the ticketing and technology level, and then the fan interaction level,” Tong said. “By the way, when they control venues, they also control food, T-shirts, parking. They’re making money coming and going at every level. And what they weren’t supposed to do was to make it worse and to go buy up even more of their competitors and to further strengthen that mode.”
At a separate news conference in Washington, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter announced the Department of Justice’s reasoning for the lawsuit.
“Our lawsuit explains through detailed allegations how Live Nation-Ticketmaster weaponized and entrenched its power at the expense of artists and music fans across the country,” Kanter said. “Just by way of example, the lawsuit alleges how Live Nation-Ticketmaster sought to avoid expensive bidding wars that would have returned more money to performers. This is bad news for all artists, but it is especially bad news for working musicians who do not have the power to fight back. Despite its massive size and power, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has acquired even small and regional promoters that Live Nation feared could one day threaten its dominance.”
Live Nation Executive Vice President Dan Wall rejected the allegations in a statement.
“The complaint – and even more so the press conference announcing it – attempt to portray Live Nation and Ticketmaster as the cause of fan frustration with the live entertainment industry. It blames concert promoters and ticketing companies – neither of which control ticket prices – for high ticket prices,” Wall said. “It ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public’s willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost. It blames Live Nation and Ticketmaster for high service charges, but ignores that Ticketmaster retains only a modest portion of those fees. In fact, primary ticketing is one of the least expensive digital distributions in the economy.”
Wall also noted that it was the Obama administration that allowed for the merger to go forward in the first place, and that the former administration acknowledged that it could not prove that vertical integration of the two companies would significantly harm competition.
“It is also clear that we are another casualty of this administration’s decision to turn over antitrust enforcement to a populist urge that simply rejects how antitrust law works. Some call this ‘Anti-Monopoly,’ but in reality it is just anti-business,” Wall said. “A central tenet of these populists is that antitrust should target companies that have grown large enough that in some nebulous way they ‘dominate’ markets – even if they attained their size through success in the marketplace, not practices that harm consumers, which is the focus of antitrust laws.”
Ticket prices have increased dramatically in the years since the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. According to a study conducted by Apollo Academy, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, ticket prices increased by 34% from 2018 to 2023, going from an average of $90 to $120.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal also released a statement in support of the litigation.
“This enforcement action should be music to the ears of consumers – a strong step supporting fair competition,” Blumenthal said. “Fans, artists, venues, small promoters and many others will enjoy enormous benefits. For far too long, Live Nation’s exercise of monopolistic control over this industry has boxed out competition, leading to astronomically rising prices and exorbitant hidden fees. The Department identifying unlawful, anticompetitive conduct makes it clear: unwinding the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger must be on the table.”
Live Nation owns two venues in Connecticut, including the Xfinity Theatre in Hartford and the Toyota Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford. Ticketmaster owns the Hartford Healthcare Ampitheater in Bridgeport.
Asked about Ticketmaster’s response suggesting that they don’t control the price of tickets, the artists do, and they don’t control the additional fees, the venues do, Tong called it “absurd,” and adding that consumers pay many different Ticketmaster taxes on all the tickets purchased.
“If they’re not controlling it, who is?” Tong said. “They control the promotion. They control where the artist gets to play. They control the venues. In the venues, they control, as I said, the food and the T-shirts and the parking. They control the ticketing and technology and the software. Nobody else even comes close. Okay, when I said that they control 265 concert venues and 60 of the top 100 amphitheaters, there’s no number two. Nobody even comes close. So if they’re not in control, who is?”
Asked about the XL Center and Rentschler Field’s difficulty booking concerts, and whether it was simply the fact that there are now two outdoor ampitheaters snatching up that business, Tong called it a good question and said he didn’t know the answer to that because he was not an expert in the industry.
“Although, I think we do know and we have evidence to show that what Ticketmaster/Live Nation do is they engineer the concert booking process to maximize their profits,” Tong said. “So for example, if there’s a promoter, a minor promoter, or an artist that won’t play ball and doesn’t play by the rules, they’ll shut them out of the venue, even if they want to play Hartford. They’ll leave Hartford empty or dark, or they’ll leave Bridgeport empty or dark, unless they get their way.”
He continued: “That’s likely happened to a certain extent. I can’t tell you why they’re not booked every single night. I’m sure there are business dynamics around that. But we do know that they have the ability, they are so dominant, that they control who gets to play where and when.”
Tong said the goal of the litigation is that Live Nation and Ticketmaster can no longer exist under one roof.
“Everything’s on the table,” Tong said. “And we want them to make it right for consumers, which means we don’t want them to charge all these ridiculous fees.”
