On Thursday morning, Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong announced the state - alongside the U.S. Department of Justice, 28 other states and the District of Columbia - is joining the lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for allegedly violating anti-trust laws.
“I think all of us know that Ticketmaster and Live Nation is a monopoly,” said Tong. “We’re stuck in that fishbowl. There’s nowhere else to go, but through Ticketmaster.”
The lawsuit alleges the company is monopolizing the ticketing industry and accuses it of threatening and retaliation against venues that works with rivals, restricting artists’ access to venues and locking out competitions by using exclusionary contracts amongst a list of other claims.
In Washington, Attorney General Merrick Garland echoed Tong’s sentiment.
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“It’s time to break it up,” said Garland. “It controls at least 90 percent of primary ticketing at major concern venues.”
Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010. Today, it owns and operates more than 265 venues in North America according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also states that Live Nation manages more than 400 artists and controls 80 percent of ticketing for major concert venues.
“At these venues, Live Nation-Ticketmaster not only earns money from tickets and fees,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, “but also, concessions, merchandise, sponsorships and even parking.”
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And Tong says “monopoly rents” are to blame for high ticket prices.
“Monopoly rents are service fees, convenience fees, payment processing fees, facility fees, handling fees, shipping fees, ticketing fees, 'just pay us because we told you' fees,” he said.
Live Nation says the allegations are baseless and that the lawsuit won’t solve the problems related to ticket prices and service fees.
It says ticket prices are set by the artist and most services fees are set and kept by the venue.
Tong called these claims absurd.
“If they’re not controlling it, who is,” he said. “They control the promotion, they control where the artist gets to play, they control the venues.”
In a statement, Live Nation called the lawsuit “PR” and said that it, “ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public’s willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost.”
