Department of Justice files lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster for antitrust violations

After a yearlong investigation, the Department of Justice announced it has filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster for breaking antitrust laws.

The event sales company stands accused of violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act, due to allegations of acquiring competing event promoters and forcing venues and artists alike into exclusionary contracts for as long as 10 years in some cases. Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed it controls 80% of ticket sales to major concert venues, has contracts with 400 entertainers, and owns or controls 60% of amphitheaters. As a result, Garland said, “It is time to break it up.”

“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Garland said at a news conference Thursday. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services.”

Joining in on the lawsuit are 30 state and district attorneys general. They are seeking structural relief in addition to a forced split of Ticketmaster from its recently acquired subsidies.

This comes after Tickmaster’s site saw its ticket presales for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” was condemned by many, and the general sale for the tour was ultimately canceled altogether.

“We knew a record number of fans wanted tickets to Taylor’s tour,” Ticketmaster’s statement about the incident in 2022 began, which it published in an attempt to explain the situation. Its attempt in the presale stage to request fans to register as a “Verified Fan” was meant to weed out bots and subsequently “make wait times shorter and onsales smoother.”

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“Historically, we’ve been able to manage huge volume coming into the site to shop for tickets, so those with Verified Fan codes have a smooth shopping process,” the statement read. “However, this time the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests — 4x our previous peak.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to Ticketmaster for comment on this lawsuit.