The Justice Department filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation Entertainment on Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America — squelching competition and driving up prices for fans.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, was being brought with 30 state and district attorneys general — including Connecticut. It seeks to break up the monopoly they say is squeezing out smaller promoters and hurting artists.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Thursday his office is part of the lawsuit.
"Ticketmaster-Live Nation is an unavoidable behemoth for fans, artists and venues. For anyone — like me — who waited hours in an interminable online queue and still failed to get Taylor Swift tickets — their market dominance has been an utter failure," Tong said in a statement.
The lawsuit alleges Live Nation relies on "unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
The Justice Department accuses Live Nation of a slew of practices that allow it to maintain a stronghold over the live music scene, including using long-term contracts to keep venues from choosing rival ticketers, blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues that they could lose money and fans if they don't choose Ticketmaster. The Justice Department says Live Nation also threatened to retaliate against one firm if it didn't stop a subsidiary from competing for artist promotion contracts.
Live Nation said in prepared remarks Thursday that the Justice Department's lawsuit “won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows.”
Live Nation added that “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" — stating that most service fees go to venues. The company said it would defend itself “against these baseless allegations" and push for other reforms.
Live Nation has for years denied that it is violating antitrust laws and also said Thursday that competition had “steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin.”
But competitor ticket sellers have long complained that Live Nation makes it difficult for them to disrupt the market with practices such as withholding acts if those venues don’t agree to use Ticketmaster’s service.
Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010, is the world’s largest ticket seller. During its annual report last month, the company said that Ticketmaster distributed more than 620 million tickets through its systems in 2023.
Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the U.S. are sold through Ticketmaster, according to data in a federal lawsuit filed by consumers in 2022. The company owns or controls more than 265 of North America's concert venues and dozens of top amphitheaters, according to the Justice Department.
The ticket seller sparked outrage in November 2022 when its site crashed during a presale event for a Taylor Swift stadium tour. The company said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. The debacle prompted congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures aimed at better protecting consumers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
