US Justice Department files anti trust suit against Ticketmaster/Live Nation

Beasty

This has been on the cards for some time, but the US Federal Government and a number of states are looking to break up Ticketmaster. Article here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-us-sues-ticketmaster-for-driving-up-live-event-fees/ar-BB1mVoIa

I'm a bit surprised the EU has not taken a look given a number of member states where they have almost a monopoly on a lot of major events, and we can see a lot of comment in this forum over Ticketmaster practices and its dominant position in the market

Shank Williams

good - **** em

whatever.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058352937/us-justice-department-files-anti-trust-suit-against-ticketmaster-live-nation

Thank you Beasty

This will be very interesting as the participating artists would be defined as conspirators in the US and joint venture in UK / Ireland

Nowso

there wanting to split up live nation and tickmaster

TheIrishGrover

Yeah, you'd think the EU would have been all over this first. Now they just need to figure out what to do about their bot/"re"sale tactics… Oh not that Ticketb*stard use bots/internal sales to profit off "re"sale (How can it be a resale if the tickets were never actually sold to actual people?).

As someone so eloquently put it above: **** em

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176316#Comment_122176316

It could be more than that. There are some sharp practices going on. For example I've been keeping my eyes on the AC/DC Croke Park ticket situation. Every day there are 30+ tickets appearing right at the far end from the stage. And by every evening there may be a dozen or so left, but it's all refreshed the next day. Could be doing it more frequently than daily. Drip feeding the worst tickets at €176 plus fees. I suspect some better ones will eventually be available, then some standing tickets, all before they open up the resale option where they get their fees a second time.

Don't know if they do this sort of thing in the US, but you can probably rest assured that they will be doing it in any country or state where they legally can. Anti Trust rules can be applied to outlaw certain practices in the US, but they may have little effect here It may take action at EU level to clamp down on their behaviour over here. Hopefully the actions of the US Justice Department will prompt something with the EU Competition Authority

Nowso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122178447#Comment_122178447

thats is the minumum there looking at there was an american Attorney General on bbc news talking about it with Catriona Perry

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176315#Comment_122176315

I cannot see them going after artists. Even Taylor Swift (who clearly is not on best terms with TM!) could not be considered as monopolising a market. However to the extent TM and LN are controlling artists and venues there may be issues to be considered. The article mentions the following markets

ticket sales

promotion

artist management

venue ownership

Zardoz

They should never have been allowed merge, thank Obama for that.

It was obvious what was going to happen.

A truly vile company whose main priority is to extract as much money from fans as possible using every nefarious trick in the book.

Beagslife

https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/may/29/revealed-how-touts-drew-up-secret-plans-to-sabotage-labours-ticket-reforms

Interesting times ahead in the UK!

Seth Brundle

Ticketmaster hacked again!

https://m.independent.ie/business/technology/hackers-access-half-a-billion-customers-data-in-ticketmaster-cyber-attack/a1520721910.html

Zardoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122198549#Comment_122198549

Labour will ban resale over 110% there, its Sharon Hodgsons lifelong goal ever since her daughter couldnt get tickets for Take That decades ago.

Unfortunately all it will do is increase the black market and fraud.

Ticketmasters monopoly will grow, and they will increase the amount of platinum and dynamic pricing as they will have no opposition.

There were already a couple of reports commissioned into a price cap by Professor Michael Waterson, economics professor at Warwick University and he deduced that it was better to regulate the secondary market than place a cap on it.

Placing a cap would only create a black market and increase fraud was his verdict, it wouldn't stop resale.

Whilst a price cap may sound like a good idea it actually only makes things worse for consumers.