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Live Nation Entertainment announced new “transparent” pricing where it will display fees at the beginning of the transaction.
While this has been on Biden’s agenda for months, he hasn’t addressed the grip Live Nation Entertainment has on the entertainment industry.
A new report shows the near-monopoly the company has on the entertainment industry.
How strong of a monopoly does Live Nation Entertainment — which is comprised of Ticketmaster and Live Nation — have over live music?
The American Economic Liberties Project found that of the 100 top arenas in the world, 68 are based in the United States. And among those in the US, 53 use ticketing provided by Ticketmaster, meaning that a whopping 78% of the highest-grossing arenas are connected to Live Nation Entertainment.
A “transparent” monopoly is still a monopoly
On Thursday, Live Nation Entertainment announced a new “transparent” pricing system: Instead of introducing a surprising host of fees at the end of the transaction, the company pledged it would introduce them at the beginning.
The decision to move to “all-in pricing” was announced the same day Biden met with a host of ticketing companies from around the country to rein in so-called “junk fees.” The effort has been on Biden’s agenda for months — he mentioned it in his February State of the Union speech.
“We can stop service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make companies disclose all the fees upfront,” Biden said while speaking to Congress.
Congress has tried to get to the bottom of the near-monopoly — lawmakers in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing tried asking Live Nation Entertainment to tell them how many of the top 100 arenas it operates ticketing for — but the company never answered their question.
A stranglehold on the live event business
Live Nation Entertainment’s grip on the industry is even more apparent when looking at the amount of revenue Ticketmaster-operated arenas bring in compared to ones using other ticketing companies.
According to the report, Ticketmaster-operated arenas brought in $2,429,105,432 in revenue in 2022, amounting to “83% of the gross revenue” of the 68 large US arenas.
Live Nation Entertainment’s hold on the entertainment industry doesn’t stop at just arenas. According to the report, 88 of the world’s top 100 amphitheaters are located in the US. And just like its hold on arena ticketing, Live Nation appears to have an outsized grip on amphitheater operations, running 56 (or 64%) of the US’ top-grossing amphitheaters.
Even when Live Nation isn’t running the show at the amphitheaters, many of them are still using Ticketmaster’s ticketing services. According to the report, among the 88 local amphitheaters, Ticketmaster was the sole provider of tickets for 82% of the venues.
The real reason why Ticketmaster can hit concertgoers with all those fees, and the attempts to stop them.
When one company has such a stranglehold on an industry, it has the power to manipulate ticket prices and make it difficult for other similar services to effectively compete in the market. According to Krista Brown, the report’s author and senior policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project, Live Nation Entertainment has such a hold on the industry because it’s vertically integrated very effectively.
Live Nation Entertainment, she explained, is a ticketing service, a concert promoter, and an artist management company. By controlling so much of the entertainment space, “they can essentially call the shots on who survives in the industry and what the industry looks like as it develops.”
Another example of Live Nation Entertainment’s control comes from exclusivity contracts, which many venues sign with ticketing services (like Ticketmaster), allowing them to manipulate pricing.
One member of California’s State Senate, however, is trying to stop this practice. Republican state Sen. Scott Wilk introduced a bill in early 2023 to ban exclusivity contracts in the ticketing industry.
“For over a decade companies like Live Nation have lured venues into signing exclusive contracts with promises of cushy kickbacks and access to top talent,” Wilk said. “But it’s the everyday consumer who ultimately pays the price, making up for those kickbacks in the form of Ticketmaster’s extra fees.”
Brown told Insider that, if passed, the bill is taking a large step forward for consumers, one she said “is much more meaningful than the all-in pricing that we just heard about yesterday.”
Ultimately, she said, it’s up to the Department of Justice to investigate and potentially take action on Live Nation Entertainment. According to the New York Times, the DOJ opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation Entertainment in late 2022.
“They would be ultimately bringing a lawsuit if all goes well,” Brown said. “And it would then have to go through the whole legal process, which can take years… That would be the way to actually reinvigorate meaningful competition in the space.”