Washington, DC—Following the Break Up Ticketmaster Coalition’s letter calling on the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to continue its lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster and to pursue structural remedies, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Since 2022, thousands of Americans have called on the DOJ to break up Live Nation/Ticketmaster. The new administration should heed this call and continue their monopolization lawsuit to force structural changes to the live event giant,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Past enforcement actions, including the consent decree and subsequent extensions, have failed to rein in Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s abusive conduct, including retaliating against or threatening concert venues, coercing artists, and over-charging fans. The agency must seek structural remedies— that, at a minimum, separate Live Nation and Ticketmaster, dismantling the monopolistic control that has suffocated the live entertainment industry for over a decade. No half measures will do.”

The 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster combined the nation’s largest concert promoter, venue operator, and artist manager with the nation’s largest ticketing service. The merged firm proceeded to leverage its control over each segment of the live event industry to block competitors to any part of its empire and self-deal at the expense of artists, independent venues, and fans—for example, by threatening to boycott venues for tours unless they used Ticketmaster.

Although these behaviors clearly violated the court-ordered consent decree Live Nation submitted to at the time of the merger, the Obama and Trump administrations punted on opportunities to implement stronger remedies, allowing Live Nation’s anti-competitive and illegal behavior to continue. Many fans reached a breaking point over eye-popping monopoly prices for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in the fall of 2022 (as the company reported record profits), leading to calls for the Justice Department to take action once again. Over 100,000 fans, artists, and industry professionals sent letters to the DOJ through Economic Liberties’ Break Up Ticketmaster campaign launched in October 2022, ratcheting up the pressure on the agency.

The Antitrust Division’s suit filed in May 2024 under the Biden Administration challenges and proposes structural remedies to curtail Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly power business lines: ticket selling, concert promotion, venue ownership, and more. Similar to remedies Economic Liberties called for in a January 2024 legal brief, the suit orders, at a minimum, the divestiture of Ticketmaster, along with termination of Live Nation’s ticketing agreement with Oak View Group, enjoining Live Nation from continuing to engage in anticompetitive practices, and other structural relief to restore competition to the live events market.

But in the time since this new suit was filed, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has continued to squeeze fans, artists, and independent venues via anti-competitive practices, while reporting record high revenue and concert profits in 2024.

Read the full letter here.

Read the Case Against Live Nation-Ticketmaster here.   

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.