COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) - Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, is being sued by the United State Department of Justice and accused of perpetuating a monopoly.
The DOJ is accusing the company of hurting customers and violating antitrust laws by controlling the live event industry from ticketing, promotion, and venue ownership standpoints.
Columbus is a city that thrives on live events such as Ohio State Buckeye football, concerts and sporting events at the Schottenstein Center, Nationwide Arena, Lower.com Field, and many other live music venues throughout the city.
"It's huge for consumers all over the country, especially here in Columbus, because we have a lot of music fans here and we've all been paying more for every ticket through fees and these different service charges," said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy & Advocacy for the American Economic Liberties Project.
Harper has been advocating for a breakup of Live Nation due to monopolizing tactics for several years.
"Live Nation, which is the parent company that owns Ticketmaster, really doesn't have any competition. So, it can charge whatever it wants, and everybody's just got to take it. Once they combined, they controlled four major business lines in live events, ticketing, Ticketmaster, concert promotion, so managing tours, artist management where they represent artists and before they go on tours in their careers and then also owning venues," she said.
Live Nation, a promoting business, merged with ticket broker Ticketmaster in 2010. After that merger, they began buying stakes in production companies and talent representation companies.
"They're blocking competition, that they're not allowing venues to think about other ticketing platforms that they might use, or they're threatening them by saying, well, you're not going to get this tour if you go with one of Ticketmaster's competitors. Live Nation Ticketmaster has way too much power over artists, over us as consumers, over independent businesses. And the action that the Department of Justice took today is going to hopefully help rebalance that power,” Harper said.
The attempt to break up the entertainment giant would, in theory, create more competition and give consumers and much smaller independent businesses more options.
"There's a lot of other players that are being hurt by Live Nation, Ticketmaster's monopoly power independent venues, so those that are not owned by Live Nation Ticketmaster, they have a really hard time negotiating to get a good deal," said Harper.
"I was surprised to see it. But you know, it's nice to see that they're stepping in and taking a little more action and taking this industry seriously. I don't think the music industry always sees the kind of action and response that it should," said Conor Stratton, a touring musician and owner of 'Ace of Cups' concert venue and bar in Clintonville.
Stratton is one of the few places where consumers can buy tickets to events without going to Ticketmaster.
"It's just a chokehold until eventually I think the grand scheme is to make it so that people can't operate without operating under their umbrella in one way or another. They'll either buy your venue or open one right next to you. It's just, it's a very cutthroat approach, in my opinion," Stratton said.
Stratton believes a Live Nation breakup would benefit the larger venues in the short term, but smaller venues like his (capacity of 300) would benefit more in the long term.
"It's not harmful to have a large production company. It's not harmful to have large music companies. It's but it is harmful when they get to the point that they essentially control everything. At the end of the day, we exist because of these artists. It's these artists that support us and we need to support them too," he said.
Harper has seen the microscope close in on Live Nation firsthand. She helped advocate for the Department of Justice investigation, and Taylor Swift super-fans, also known as "Swifties," may have a lot to do with it.
"The swift effect is real. I mean, when we launched the campaign, the breakup Ticketmaster campaign, we had a successful launch. There were like 5,000 people that signed up,” she said. “Eventually, 100,000 people sent letters.”
Ticketmaster was tasked with distribution of Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert tickets in November 2022 which led to Ohio's Attorney General investigating. The website crashed, leaving many fans unable to buy tickets which forced them to look on the secondary market at exponentially higher prices.
Harper said that helped lead to where the anti-trust lawsuit sits today.
"Bipartisan, Democratic, Republican AGs have also signed on to this thing, which to me also suggests that there's a high probability of success here," she said.
