Joel Khalili
The debacle led to a hearing in the US Senate on consolidation in the ticketing industry. In May, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which it accused of abusing their alleged ticketing monopoly to trample competitors.
In a statement provided to WIRED at the time, Live Nation disputed the claim. “The DOJ’s lawsuit won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows,” the company wrote. “Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win 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 the bulk of service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin.”
The original lawsuit brought by the 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 presale. Meanwhile, by entering into exclusivity contracts with large venues and forcing fans to resell tickets through its own resale marketplace, the lawsuit claims, Ticketmaster established a monopoly that it wields to inflate ticket prices for its own financial gain.
“This case concerns the anticompetitive conduct of Ticketmaster, to impose higher prices on music concert attendees in the presale, sale, and resale market,” the complaint states. “Ticketmaster has effectuated this anticompetitive scheme by forcing fans of musicians to exclusively use Ticketmaster for presale and sales prices, which are above what a competitive market price would be.”
The new lawsuit is near-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 allegation hinges on the premise that Ticketmaster and Live Nation coordinate with partner organizations to exert market dominance and squeeze consumers, in a way that meets the definition of an “enterprise” under the RICO act.
“Live Nation and Ticketmaster exploit the relationship between themselves and with stadium venues largely owned by Live Nation to achieve the purpose of their enterprise, and have been doing so ever since the Department of Justice ill-advisedly approved their merger nearly a decade and a half ago,” the complaint states.