Live Nation monopoly verdict: Here’s what it means for concerts

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Live Nation will have to face antitrust music, a federal jury in New York ruled this week, declaring that America’s preeminent concert broker. it is an illegal monopoly. This was not news to those of us who attended a concert in the past, oh, decades. You can count on a ticket for Celine Dion return tour with all the money I tithe to Live Nation in service fees and charges.

The verdict is an important recognition, however, that all is not well on the American concert scene. So this morning, we take a look at why live music has become so expensive – and how this verdict could change things.

Before entering the problems in the case, let’s face the question of the brand: No, this verdict will not (immediately, or even necessarily) lower the prices of tickets. The court has not yet assessed the penalties. And Live Nation has already signaled that it will likely appeal. But the case could also, over time, throw off Live Nation’s dominance in the live music market.

How much of the industry does Live Nation control, anyway?

A bag Too much much of it, according to this verdict. Since 2010, when Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged, the combined company has dominated not only ticketing, but venue management, artist management and event promotion in the United States.

This process stated that Live Nation would control, by 2024, about 60 percent of the market for concert promotion and 70 percent for tickets. He also operated almost 80 percent of the main arenas of the country and managed more than 400 artists, locking both performers and venues in exclusive contracts that made it difficult for alternatives to compete.

How does Live Nation’s monopoly hurt consumers?

As Emily Stewart wrote for Vox in 2023, companies with this market power there is really no need to compete on price or quality. Just look at the sorry state of concert tickets.

Live Nation has taken particular heat over service fees that affect ticket prices, which vary by venue and event, but always seem like a little too high to be fair. The federal jury in New York found that the company had overcharged customers $1.72 per ticket, on average.

Ticketmaster’s glitchy software has also drawn scrutiny – most visibly, and controversially, ahead of the start of Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour. Widespread site outages are preventing many US fans from securing concert tickets, and, well… if there’s a fan base you don’t want to cross, is probably Swift’s.

Swift is just one of many, many artists on tour who have complained about Live Nation and Ticketmaster over the years, typically accusing the company to make their tours inaccessible to fans. In 2022, country singer Zach Bryan also dropped a self-titled album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster. (Despite this, only one artist testified during the trial: Ben Lovett, of Mumford & Sons, who is also an operator of the venue.)

What will this verdict do on everything?

That remains to be seen. This lawsuit began under the Biden administration, which argued that it was “time to break up (Live Nation).” The Trump administration took a different approach, withdrawing from the suit and signing a tentative agreement in early March. But more than 30 states have continued the case, without the Department of Justice, hence Wednesday’s verdict.

Judge Arun Subramanian can now impose financial penalties or mandate changes on Live Nation’s business. The company could be asked to refund some consumers, for example, or to divest some places. In an “ideal scenario”, an antitrust policy analyst told my colleague Alex Abad-Santos in 2022, a judge will cancel the merger that created Live Nation 16 years ago. But no major American company has been destroyed by antitrust litigation since AT&T in 1984.

What would breaking up Live Nation do?

Live Nation presumably maintains that the division brings nothing. In a statement to Rolling Stone earlier this week, the company said that “there is no evidence on the record that Live Nation or Ticketmaster are driving ticket prices higher or that the company’s destruction would lower them.” A common one justification for vertical mergerslike the behemoth Live Nation/Ticketmaster, is that they create efficiencies that benefit consumers.

Antitrust experts are skeptical, however, saying these benefits rarely pan out. They argue that breaking Live Nation it would break its network of exclusive contracts, restore competition, and give smaller venues and ticketing companies a chance – potentially lowering ticket prices and raising wages for workers in both venues and ticketing services.

A split doesn’t solve everything, though. On their own, Ticketmaster and Live Nation are still big enough to exert considerable influence over ticket prices and availability. (In fact, both were subject to complaints on those scores before merging into one company).

Live Nation’s dominance isn’t the only reason concerts have become so expensive, either. Like Whizy Kim wrote for Vox in 2024Demand for top concert tickets far outstrips supply, driving up the cost of tickets in both the primary and secondary (boom, often predatory) markets. By one calculation, the average ticket price for a top-100 music tour rose from $40.74 in 2000 to $122.84 in 2023, well outpacing inflation.

Is there another way to lower ticket prices?

Kim proposed a counterintuitive solution: make tickets even more expensive at their initial point of sale. Increasing its face value undercuts scalpers, who raise prices even higher on resale.

Other solutions could include releasing more tickets to general fans instead of holding reservations for pre-sales or VIPs and restricting or regulating the secondary market. Some states have tried to legislate these problems, while a bipartisan bill which last year passed in size in the House, imposes more transparency on the added charges. Last March, President Donald Trump also signed an executive order directing the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on ticket resellers.

Alas, none of that will help you if you’re trying to catch some live music this weekend. But take solace in the fact that the concerts just scored – in the words of so many state attorneys general – a “historic” victory over the rogue forces of monopolization.