Colorado joined a multi-state federal lawsuit against concert mega-promoter Live Nation Entertainment on Thursday, alleging the company that owns Ticketmaster holds a monopoly over live events that has harmed consumers.
The long-expected lawsuit, for which the U.S. Department of Justice has been laying groundwork ever since the Taylor Swift ticket debacle in 2022, comes in the wake of record-high average ticket prices and complaints about bots and scalpers — and as the concert industry has roared back over the last three years with record revenue.
Now, the U.S. Justice Department and Colorado, 28 other states and the District of Columbia seek to break up what they call an illegal monopoly and force Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster.
“Ticketmaster is the dominant provider of ticketing services in the United States and both fans and artists face extraordinary pressure to use its monopoly,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “As a result, fans are paying exorbitant prices. This lawsuit calls for opening up competition in ticketing services and preventing Live Nation from using its other assets in ways that undermine competition.”
Live Nation has essentially become a vertical monopoly, the lawsuit alleges, by inserting itself “into nearly every aspect of the live music industry, including ticket sales, promotions, marketing and venues,” Weiser’s office wrote.
The 124-page federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, echoes that language, saying Live Nation maintains its illegal monopoly “through a web of agreements, along with other anticompetitive acts, to make higher profits, stifle competition and innovation in the industry, and thereby harm concertgoers.”
“It’s time for fans and artists to stop paying the price for Live Nation’s monopoly,”Attorney General Merrick Garlandsaid. “It is time to restore competition and innovation in the entertainment industry. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster. The American people are ready for it.”
Lawsuit is “baseless,” Live Nation says
Live Nation officials called the lawsuit “baseless” and said it won’t help reduce high ticket prices, according to a statement released to news media outlets. Local Live Nation officials declined to comment.
“The DOJ’s lawsuit won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees and access to in-demand shows,” Live Nation said in its press statement. “Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment, such as the fact that the bulk of service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin.”
Live Nation earlier this year said it had earned $22.7 billion in 2023 across more than 50,000 events that drew 145 million fans — up 20% from the previous year.
In a late-Thursday update, Live Nation’s Dan Wall, executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, produced charts showing Live Nation’s purported lack of market power.
“Every year, competition in the industry drives Live Nation to earn lower take rates from both concert promotion and ticketing,” he wrote. “The company is profitable and growing because it helps grow the industry, not because it has market power.”
Weiser’s office said Live Nation plays by different rules. It has locked up venues in Colorado and across the country “through restrictive long-term, exclusive agreements and threats that venues will lose access to concert tours and artists if they sign with a rival ticketing company,” his office wrote. “Live Nation also leverages its extensive network of amphitheaters to force artists to select Live Nation as a promoter instead of its rivals, maintaining its promotions monopoly.”
“Denver is a different market”
Whatever the results of the lawsuit, they would likely affect the Denver and Colorado markets less than others. Colorado is the rare state where Live Nation and Ticketmaster have far less reach than rival promoter AEG Presents, founded and owned by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz.
Anschutz over the years has cherry-picked talent from Live Nation, including former AEG Presents Rocky Mountains president and CEO Chuck Morris, to build its business while aggressively booking and renting the top venues in the area.
Currently, AEG Presents Rocky Mountains books the majority of concerts at the Denver-owned Red Rocks Amphitheatre, owns Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre and the Gothic Theatre, and consistently rents and dominates venues such as the Bluebird Theater and Ogden Theatre.
AEG Presents built and runs Mission Ballroom, and books concerts at outdoor venues outside of the Denver metro area, such as Dillon Amphitheater and Colorado Springs’ newly built Sunset Amphitheatre.
AXS, the ticketing spin-off of AEG, is also the official ticket seller for Denver city events, the contract for which City Council members must approve every five years. Its current, $5 million contract was approved in 2019.
Live Nation, by contrast, has a much smaller footprint. It owns the Fillmore Auditorium and books that venue along with Summit Music Hall, the Marquis Theater and some — but not all — shows at Ball Arena, Empower Field at Mile High and Coors Field. Ticketmaster is the exclusive seller for Ball Arena’s concerts and sporting events, as well as for Denver’s historic Paramount Theatre.
The competition means Denver concert fans have more choices than just Ticketmaster, however.
“Denver is a different market than the national ones because you have AXS and Hold My Ticket and some others,” said Doug Kauffman, a partner in Denver promoter Nobody in Particular Presents, and owner of the Ogden Theatre. “It’s not as Ticketmaster-dominated.”
Musicians who have tried to take on the entertainment giant for decades include Pearl Jam, members of which testified at congressional hearings in 1994. Colorado jam-band titan The String Cheese Incident in the early 2000s also fought with Ticketmaster over sales fees and ticket availability.
“We’re scalping our own tickets at no service charge,” Mike Luba, one of the group’s managers, told The New York Timesin 2012, alleging the band was forced to buy back its own tickets to take care of its fans. “It’s ridiculous.”
The band had sued Ticketmaster in 2003, saying the company was using its market power to deny acts the artist-specific tickets they typically get (or about 8% of the total available tickets, according to the Times). They settled out of court, but their agreement for the band to sell more tickets expired in 2009.
The focus now is on consumers — and how Live Nation’s tactics force fans to pay more for tickets amid limited options for Ticketmaster-sold concerts, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office said.
“For this reason, fans attending concerts at Live Nation-controlled amphitheaters get access to fewer shows and see fewer artists than they otherwise would,” Weiser’s office said in its announcement of the lawsuit. “Artists, meanwhile, are forced to go through Live Nation to reach music lovers, even if they are dissatisfied with Live Nation’s treatment of fans.”
“It’s time to end Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive tactics and ironclad grip on this market,” Weiser said in his statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
