Live Nation’s biggest competitor in the live music business - AEG - has unsurprisingly told the judge overseeing its rival’s big antitrust legal battle that the only acceptable outcome to that case is a reversal of the 2010 merger that brought Live Nation and Ticketmaster into one company.
AEG was responding to the controversial deal agreed between Live Nation and the US Department Of Justice back in March. That deal settled the federal government’s legal claims against Live Nation, which it had accused of anticompetitive behaviour. Both Live Nation and the DoJ insist the deal addresses key concerns about competition in the live music market, but critics argue it was a political settlement reached after Live Nation hired lawyers and lobbyists with close ties to President Donald Trump.
According to Billboard, in a formal response to that deal, AEG writes, “The bottom line is simple: as long as Ticketmaster remains vertically integrated with Live Nation, venues will continue to face pressure to choose Ticketmaster because of Live Nation’s control over content. The proposed deal does not address that fundamental incentive structure. Divestiture is needed to restore competition”.
Under relevant US competition laws, any interested party can formally comment on Live Nation’s DoJ settlement deal before Judge Arun Subramanian decides whether or not to approve it, and today is the deadline for submitting those comments. That deadline comes in a busy week for ticketing developments, with new ticket touting regulations also in the spotlight in the US, Brazil and South Korea.
AEG on Live Nation’s DoJ deal
Not only is it unsurprising that AEG has formally spoken out against Live Nation’s DoJ deal, it’s equally unsurprising that Live Nation has been disparaging about its rival's response.
The company’s EVP Of Corporate And Regulatory Affairs Dan Wall says AEG’s filing about the deal is designed to “advance its own commercial interests” rather than those of “artists, venues or fans”. And to that end, it “misrepresents the settlement’s terms”.
“The Department Of Justice negotiated this settlement and has said it delivers meaningful relief for consumers", Wall continues in a statement to Billboard, adding that “nothing” in AEG’s filing “changes our confidence that the court will approve it”.
When the DoJ first launched its antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation in 2024, it was also calling for a forced divestiture of Ticketmaster to address concerns that the live music giant exploits its dominance in tours, venues and ticketing to unfairly hamper competitors.
And the 33 US states that continued with the antitrust legal battle despite the DoJ deal, and subsequently convinced a jury that Live Nation and Ticketmaster operate an unlawful monopoly, are also still pushing for the two companies to be broken up.
AEG is also active in tour promotions, venue management and ticketing in the US, although its ticketing business AXS is significantly smaller than Ticketmaster. Therefore, despite being a major player in live music itself, AEG has also regularly accused its rival of anticompetitive conduct.
When the DoJ first filed its antitrust lawsuit, AEG Presents CEO Jay Marciano told his staff in a memo, “AEG has long maintained that Ticketmaster has a monopoly in the US ticketing marketplace and uses that monopoly power to subsidise Live Nation’s content businesses, preventing other businesses from competing in those areas and leaving consumers to suffer the consequences”.
In its new filing about the DoJ deal, AEG also notes that Live Nation has made business practice commitments to the US government department before in a bid to allay competition concerns.
First in 2010 in a consent decree Live Nation signed to get approval for its Ticketmaster merger, and then in 2020 in a revised agreement signed after allegations the original consent decree had been violated. Neither of those agreements resulted in a meaningful change in Live Nation practices, AEG now claims.
We await to see what decision Subramanian makes regarding the DoJ deal - and then what sanctions he decides are appropriate on the back of the jury ruling in the state-led antitrust action.
New ticket touting regulations in the US
Elsewhere in the US this week, the National Independent Venue Association has welcomed developments in Congress where proposed new regulations of the ticketing business - and especially secondary ticketing - continue to progress.
That includes the MAIN Event Ticketing Act, which would ramp up existing US-wide rules stopping the use of special software - or ‘bots’ - by touts in order to hoover up tickets for in-demand events from primary ticketing platforms in order to resell them on resale markets.
Those proposals advanced out of the relevant subcommittee in the House Of Representatives this week. Companion proposals in the Senate have already cleared the committee stage and have now been placed on the legislative calendar.
In a statement, NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker says that Congress now has “an opportunity to deliver meaningful resale reform that has strong bipartisan support and the backing of countless independent stages, nonprofits and fans”. He adds, “the MAIN Event Ticketing Act has momentum in both chambers and Congress should pass it”.
NIVA has also welcomed the introduction of another set of ticketing proposals in Congress this week - the Guaranteeing Honest Ownership In Secondary Ticketing Act or GHOST Act - which targets speculative selling, where touts advertise for sale tickets they haven’t even secured yet.
New ticket touting regulations in Brazil
New ticket touting regulations were actually signed into law in Brazil this week with legislation that has been dubbed the Taylor Swift Law. The new regulations mainly force transparency onto tickets touts and resale platforms operating within the country.
Mirroring transparency rules already in force in many other countries, secondary ticketing platforms will have to clearly highlight that they are resale marketplaces - not primary ticketing sites - and ensure that the full price of each touted ticket is declared upfront. They will also have to adopt some measures to discourage speculative selling and other abusive resale practices.
The connection to Swift is partly that calls for better regulation of ticket touting in Brazil spiked when her ‘Eras Tour’ was in the country and fans hit out at all the tickets being touted at massive markups.
But it is also because the new touting regulations are accompanied by another new law relating to live music which requires large events to provide free drinking water at shows and to allow concertgoers to bring their own water into venues.
That new law was prompted by the death of a fan at one of Swift’s Brazilian shows in November 2023. Ana Clara Benevides died of heat exhaustion at the show, which took place during a period of extreme hot weather. At the time other concertgoers complained that they had been prohibited from entering the stadium with their own water bottles, which was dangerous given the weather conditions.
New ticket touting regulations in South Korea
Finally, new laws against ticket touting in South Korea went into effect at the end of last week. They basically outlaw the resale of tickets for profit on a commercial basis, with those breaching the rules facing fines of up to 50 times whatever they made from their touting.
It remains to be seen how rigorously those new rules are enforced, especially given local media reports on some of the tactics being employed to try and circumvent the new rules. That includes one person selling an Americano mobile coffee coupon for 660,000 won which came with a ‘free ticket’ to a baseball game that would usually cost 100,000 won. Which is sneaky.