A federal lawsuit has been filed against Live Nation Entertainment and its owned subsidiary Ticketmaster by the Department of Justice and 30 state and district attorneys across the U.S. for violating antitrust laws.
The civil antitrust suit was filed the Southern District of New York and claims that since its merger in 2010, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have created a monopoly on live event ticket prices across the United States, using its power to grow its business and prevent any competition, while creating higher prices and frustrating consumer experiences.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland explained, "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."
"For too long, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have unfairly and illegally run the world of live events, abusing their dominance to overcharge fans, bully venues, and limit artists," added New York Attorney General Letitia James. "When companies like Live Nation control every aspect of an event, it leads to bad blood -- concertgoers and sports fans suffer and are forced to pay more. Everybody agrees, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are the problem and it's time for a new era. Today, we are taking this important action to protect consumers and force big companies to stop abusing their influence and get in formation."
The lawsuit is the result of a more than two-year-long investigation into how the companies handled presales for tickets to Taylor Swift Eras Tour, which forced the superstar to publicly criticize the operation, saying, "It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse."
Live Nation has responded to the lawsuit in a post on its site called "Breaking Down The DOJ Lawsuit." In the statement, the promoter argues that the suit "ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public’s willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost. It blames Live Nation and Ticketmaster for high service charges, but ignores that Ticketmaster retains only a modest portion of those fees. In fact, primary ticketing is one of the least expensive digital distributions in the economy."
You can read the full statement here.