The US Justice Department has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation.
According to the New York Times, the Justice Department’s antitrust division has “contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry.” Specific questions have centered around whether Live Nation has honored a consent decree the company made with the Justice Department upon its merger with Ticketmaster in 2010, in which Live Nation promised not to punish concert venues who used competing ticket platforms by withholding access to Live Nation-promoted tours.
The Justice Department previously found evidence of Live Nation engaging in such behavior after launching an investigation in 2018. Under terms of the ensuing settlement, Live Nation agreed to extend the consent decree to 2025 and reimbursed the Justice Department for the costs of its investigation.
On Thursday, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar called for a federal investigation into Live Nation / Ticketmaster following its handling of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.” During the pre-sale more than 14 million people attempted to access Ticketmaster at once, causing the website to crash and preventing many fans of the opportunity to purchase tickets. Ticketmaster later canceled the general on-sale for Swift’s tour, citing “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
According to the New York Times, the Justice Department’s investigation actually pre-dates Swift’s ticket sale. (Maybe AG Merrick Garland is a Springsteen fan?) The Biden Administration has made antitrust enforcement a priority, having already gone after Penguin Random House for its purchase of Simon & Schuster, and blocking Meta’s purchase of a VR company.
Beyond a federal investigation, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has said he is looking into whether antitrust violations “could be an issue” with Ticketmaster’s handling of Swift’s tour. “As an industry player, you would think Ticketmaster would be prepared,” Skrmetti said during a press conference earlier this week. “Because they have a dominant position, they may have thought they didn’t need to worry about that. This could be an indicator that there’s not enough competition in the market.”
Live Nation has not yet commented on the Justice Department investigation. However, responding to criticism over its handling of Swift’s tour, the company blamed the immense demand for tickets. “Based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)… that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years,” the company said in a statement.
Consequence has reached out to Live Nation’s representatives for comment.