The Association Of Independent Festivals has called on the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority to investigate whether the dominance of Live Nation in the UK live music market creates competition law concerns.
It follows the recent hearing of Parliament’s Business And Trade Committee where Live Nation and Ticketmaster execs faced tough questioning from MPs, who didn’t seem especially impressed with the answers they were offered.
“Based on our analysis, we believe that there is evidence to suggest that Live Nation could be held responsible for engaging in anti-competitive behaviour”, says AIF CEO John Rostron, before adding, “we therefore recommend that the Competition & Markets Authority investigate matters”.
“While we encourage and support organisations and individuals” putting on live music at all levels, Roston goes on, “we wish for the market to be fair where all participants - whether major companies or independents - have opportunities at all levels. That’s why we took this action”.
If the CMA does decide to investigate Live Nation, there will be parallels with the investigation undertaken in the US by the Department Of Justice which resulted in ongoing legal action that ultimately seeks to reverse the 2010 merger of Live Nation and its ticketing business Ticketmaster.
While some of the issues raised by the DoJ are specific to the US market - and the consent decree Live Nation agreed with the US government during the 2010 Ticketmaster merger - some of the concerns raised about the live giant’s market dominance are the same on both sides of the Atlantic.
In both the US and the UK, Live Nation is a major player in tour and festival promotion, venue management and - via Ticketmaster - ticketing, making it hard for any artist to tour above a certain level of venue without working with a Live Nation subsidiary in some way.
It’s not always obvious that Live Nation is promoting the show or running the venue, but companies like Festival Republic, Cuffe & Taylor, DF Concerts, Metropolis and Academy Music Group are all part of Live Nation’s UK empire.
Data shared with the Parliamentary committee by AIF reckons that, of the 23 million tickets on sale for arena, stadium and outdoor concerts in the UK this year, Live Nation directly controls 58.36% - so 13.5 million tickets - and, when taking affiliate companies into account, that rises to 66.4%, 15.36 million tickets.
Another parallel with the US is the concern that Live Nation has a close business relationship with one of its bigger rivals, which - some would argue - means the live giant has even more control over the market, even when in theory it looks like there’s a sizable competitor.
In the US, the rival of concern in that domain is Oak Tree Group. During last month’s Parliamentary hearing, the spotlight fell on independent UK promoter SJM, which competes with Live Nation as a promoter but also has some business partnerships with the live giant.
As CMU recently reported, MP Charlie Maynard pressed Live Nation’s Executive Vice President Of Touring International Live Music, Phil Bowdery, on the relationship between Live Nation and SJM, and appeared somewhat frustrated at the exec’s responses - in particular when Bowdery said he didn’t know how many companies Live Nation co-owns with SJM.
“What is weird about this”, the MP said, “is that you say you are competitors, but you co-own a whole load of companies together”.
The CMA recently investigated Live Nation’s Ticketmaster business regarding its sale of tickets for the Oasis reunion shows, concluding that there were some concerns over whether or not the ticketing company had breached consumer rights law which could now result in legal action.
We await to see if the regulator can be persuaded to now investigate Live Nation’s wider UK operations to assess the concerns expressed regarding competition law.