Although humans have held live music events for eons, money-hogging companies Ticketmaster and Live Nation are destroying the joy of concerts and hurting small artists.
Ticketmaster, a ticket sales and distribution company, and Live Nation, an events promoter and venue operator, merged in 2010 to create Live Nation Entertainment after approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ.)
Promarket wrote an article in June providing a timeline of Ticketmaster’s sketchy history.
“In 2010, the settlement included prohibitions on conditioning and on retaliation, that is, providing ticketing services (via Ticketmaster) to a venue owner only if it also books the artists who have signed up with Live Nation’s management and promotional services, or retaliating against the venue if it chooses not to do so,” the article reads.
However, the settlement seems to have not gone the way the DOJ had hoped, seeing as it filed a lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster i May for monopolizing markets throughout the live music industry.
Thirty states and attorney generals joined the DOJ in the lawsuit and demanded structural relief in an attempt to “restore competition in the live concert industry, provide better choices at lower prices for fans, and open venue doors for working musicians and other performance artists,” according to the DOJ’s lawsuit press release.
Artists are also taking action against the monopolization Live Nation Entertainment has created.
Oasis released a statement on Sept. 30 saying Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model, which alters ticket prices based on real time demand, will not be applied to North American ticket sales.
“It is widely accepted that dynamic pricing remains a useful tool to combat ticket touting and keep prices for a significant portion of fans lower than the market rate and thus more affordable, but when unprecedented ticket demand… is combined with technology that cannot cope with that demand, it becomes less effective and can lead to an unacceptable experience for fans,” the statement reads.
While widely known bands like Oasis can afford to choose how they conduct ticket sales, smaller artists are not always allowed the same privilege. Even big-name artists struggle when fighting against Live Nation Entertainment.
Pearl Jam is a famous example of a bigger band trying to push back Ticketmaster’s greedy fees and losing. The band filed an antitrust complaint against Ticketmaster in 1994 claiming Ticketmaster’s service fees and grasp on ticket sales were hurting the music industry, but the DOJ eventually closed the case.
Though the case was a loss for the band, concert goers benefitted from minor improvements Ticketmaster made to ward off additional media attention. The DOJ’s new lawsuit proves not enough was done to ward off this attention for long.
Many people try to avoid purchasing tickets through Live Nation Entertainment and go the extra mile to support small artists buried beneath its veil of thievery.
Plenty of other entertainment groups, such as AXS and Bandsintown, sell tickets for big events, and small artists can still be supported at local venues and low-scale music festivals.
Real music and concert lovers are seeing the damage done by the looming shadow of Live Nation Entertainment and are trying to create a fair playing field that allows artists to gain popularity based on love for the music, not name-based revenue.
AP News released a comprehensive timeline detailing Ticketmaster’s history of clashing with artists that I would urge anyone skeptical of the damage to read. I would also encourage everyone, especially people hoping to discover new artists, to leave Ticketmaster in the past in hopes of rebuilding the stage for smaller performers.
