LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Following reports that United States Senator Amy Klobuchar and the Department of Justice have launched inquiries into alleged anti-competitive practices on the part of Ticketmaster, the company issued a statement.
The renewed scrutiny of Live Nation follows last week’s tumultuous ticket presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming ‘Eras’ tour that left fans frustrated with long waits and technical glitches and facing sky-high prices for tickets on the secondary market, despite the use of Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program.
We have printed Live Nation’s full statement on the reported anti-trust allegations below.
As we have stated many times in the past, Live Nation takes its responsibilities under the antitrust laws seriously and does not engage in behaviors that could justify antitrust litigation, let alone orders that would require it to alter fundamental business practices.
The concert promotion business is highly competitive, with artist management in control of selecting their promoting team. The demand for live entertainment continues to grow, and there are more promoters than ever working with artists to help them connect with fans through live shows. The Department of Justice itself recognized the competitive nature of the concert promotion business at the time of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger. That dynamic has not changed.
Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system. The market is increasingly competitive nonetheless, with rivals making aggressive offers to venues. That Ticketmaster continues to be the leader in such an environment is a testament to the platform and those who operate it, not to any anticompetitive business practices. 5 years ago tickets were paper, now you scan in with your phone, and can transfer tickets to your friend with one tap. We innovate and invest in our technology more than any other ticketing company, and we will continue to do so.
Secondary ticketing is extremely competitive, with Ticketmaster competing with StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid and many others. No serious argument can be made that Ticketmaster has the kind of market position in secondary ticketing that supports antitrust claims.
For the past 12 years Live Nation has operated under a Consent Decree that among other things seeks to prevent anticompetitive leveraging of Live Nation promoted content to advantage Ticketmaster. Pursuant to the Amended Decree voluntarily entered in 2020, Live Nation’s compliance is monitored by a former federal judge. There never has been and is not now any evidence of systemic violations of the Consent Decree. It remains against Live Nation policy to threaten venues that they won’t get Live Nation shows if they do not use Ticketmaster, and Live Nation does not re-route content as retaliation for a lost ticketing deal.
Ticketmaster is also the most transparent and fan-friendly ticketing system in the United States. Ticketmaster does not set or control ticket prices, strongly advocates for all-in pricing so that fans are not surprised by what tickets really cost, and is the undisputed market leader in ticket security and fighting bots. Ticketmaster also does not embrace deceptive and questionable secondary ticketing practices prevalent on rival sites such as speculative ticketing.
We are proud of the work we do across both concerts and ticketing, and will continue working to improve and support the live events industry.
Separately, Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary offered an analysis of what went wrong with the presale, reporting that their platform struggled with the “unprecedented demand” of more than 3.5 billion total system requests connected with the presale.
As well, the company reported that the site was subjected to a ‘staggering’ number of bot attacks during the presale, which compounded the technical issues the platform faced amid the surge in demand.
Read the full Ticketmaster analysis here: https://business.ticketmaster.com/business-solutions/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-onsale-explained/
