Indiana joins lawsuit against Live Nation, Ticketmaster

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana joined a lawsuit challenging Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s dominance in the concert industry.

Indiana is one of nine states whose attorneys general signed onto the lawsuit, initially filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, 29 states and the District of Columbia in May.

The other newly added states are Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont. There are now 40 co-plaintiffs in the case.

The amended lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York accuses Live Nation-Ticketmaster of anticompetitive (monopolistic) practices. The Justice Department claims Americans pay more for tickets than fans in other countries and that Live Nation-Ticketmaster has too much power over venues, ticketing, promotions and artists.

“We allege that 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 B. Garland said when the lawsuit was initially announced in May. “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.”

Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010. The lawsuit alleges the companies violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act “through additional, different, and more expansive forms of anticompetitive conduct and exclusionary practices.”

Live Nation manages more than 400 musical artists and controls about 60% of concert promotions at major venues around the U.S., the Justice Department said. The company owns or controls more than 265 North American concert venues—including Ruoff Music Center, Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park and Old National Centre.

Ticketmaster, Live Nation’s fully owned subsidiary, controls roughly 80% of those venues’ primary ticketing as well as a “growing share of ticket resales in the secondary market.”

The dominance of the companies, the lawsuit alleges, has stymied competition and innovation in the concert/ticketing industry. The DOJ said the company uses a “flywheel” strategy to advance its business interests:

The flywheel is Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s self-reinforcing business model that captures fees and revenue from concert fans and sponsorship, uses that revenue to lock up artists to exclusive promotion deals, and then uses its powerful cache of live content to sign venues into long term exclusive ticketing deals, thereby starting the cycle all over again.

You can read the lawsuit here .

Live Nation-Ticketmaster drew congressional scrutiny last year when fans struggled to buy tickets for Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.”

The company argues the DOJ lawsuit won’t reduce ticket prices or service fees and maintains there’s “more competition than ever in the live events market.” The company said Ticketmaster’s market share has declined since the 2010 merger.

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