In the ongoing antitrust attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a constant theme is that their alleged “monopolies” are responsible for high ticket prices. Rhetorically, that’s understandable, because if you want to rile up fans against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, there is no better way than to blame them for something you know fans dislike. But is there really a connection between any of these antitrust arguments and prices for concert tickets? That’s the subject of today’s post.The starting point is what Live Nation and Ticketmaster actually do. What roles do they play in the concert industry and what power does that give them to influence ticket prices? We’ll start with Ticketmaster, since it tends to get the lion’s share of the blame for high ticket prices even though, as we shall see, it has the least influence over prices.How Ticketing WorksTicketmaster and other “primary ticketing companies” provide the technology and services that venues need to manage and market shows, sel...
