The Live Nation Verdict Is In: Will Ticket Prices Go Down?

In the wake of the verdict against Live Nation Wednesday, in which a New York jury found that the company runs an unlawful monopoly in the concert industry, two questions have towered above all others: “Will ticket prices go down?” and “Will this open up the marketplace for artists and venues?”

The short answer to both: Not anytime soon.

Judge Arun Subramanian has yet to rule on the remedy, which could include the breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. And whatever the outcome, Live Nation plans to appeal.

“The jury’s verdict is not the last word on this matter,” the company said Wednesday, vowing to use every legal method at its disposal to fight the case.

Still, several legal experts said they were optimistic that down the line, the verdict could have a significant impact.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a situation where ticket prices are all of a sudden going to drop 20 bucks,” said attorney Aaron Silvenis, who has written critically about the Live Nation merger with Ticketmaster. “But I think if these companies are broken up, then maybe we get some viable competition in this industry.”

During the trial, jurors were shown Slack messages in which a Live Nation executive spoke of “robbing them blind” — referring to fans — and said that certain fees were “fucking outrageous” and that “these people are so stupid.”

“I almost feel bad taking advantage of them,” wrote the exec, Benjamin Baker. “BAHAHAHAHAHA.”

Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino was also confronted with a 2016 email, in which he wrote, “Our fees are too high we can’t defend them.”

The jury ruled unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs, a coalition of 33 states and the District of Columbia, which argued that Live Nation’s monopolized the market for ticketing and used its muscle to force artists to play its venues.

The verdict is a stinging rebuke to the Department of Justice, which settled with Live Nation early in the trial, leaving it to the states to litigate to a verdict. It also casts a shadow over the DOJ’s approval of the merger in 2010, which included behavioral conditions meant to ensure open competition. Those conditions have been repeatedly violated, and jurors concluded they were no match for restrain monopoly power.

But that underscores why the next step in the case — the remedy phase — is so critical, experts say.

“If the remedy is too weak it will be similar to what happened in 2010 when they were allowed to merge,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School who specializes in antitrust. “That was putting a bandaid on the competitive problems.”

Live Nation has multiple ownership stakes across the concert industry — from ticketing to venues to promotion to concessions and more. They and Ticketmaster unquestionably bully both rivals and many partners, and have the muscle to retaliate when things don’t go their way, as in the damning 2021 phone conversation between Rapino and then-Barclays Center CEO John Abbamondi. Rapino stated it would be “tough to deliver tickets or [Live Nation-promoted] concerts” to the Brooklyn venue after it switched from Ticketmaster to rival SeatGeek.

The states were able to demonstrate a “flywheel” between Live Nation’s various lines of business that allowed it to exclude potential competitors.

“If you break up that flywheel and break up that monopoly, there will be more companies out there competing for this business,” said John Breyault, vice president of the National Consumers League. “I think consumers will one day benefit in the form of lower ticket prices.”

The states will push for a full divestiture of Ticketmaster.

But even that can only move the needle so much, as lack of competition is far the only factor driving up prices. Though tagged by the Biden administration as a purveyor of “junk fees,” and traditionally listed among America’s most hated companies, Ticketmaster does not determine face-value ticket prices. Artists and their teams do, and part of the company’s role is to take the heat for fan outcry. Both the Taylor Swift “Eras” tour on-sale debacle and Bruce Springsteen’s dynamic-pricing disaster were launched with the artists’ consent, although the problems were not fully foreseen and many devils were in the details.

A lot of it boils down to demand. People are willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for these tickets. A major part of Live Nation’s battles against the secondary market is an effort to ensure that the money from those inflated prices goes to the people who are putting on the tours — the artists, promoters, venues and, of course, themselves — instead of a secondary ticketer or scalper who is contributing zero (it is also a reason why Ticketmaster has its own secondary marketing platform).

While it’s far too early to predict any outcome, it seems possible that Judge Subramanian could simply build on the restrictions of the DOJ settlement reached early in the trial. Live Nation could have to set limits on its exclusive ticketing contracts and fees, and open some of its venues to rival promoters — along with fees. It has already created a $280 million fund for such fees connected to the proposed DOJ settlement, although that is a drop in the bucket for Live Nation, which has been valued at around $38 billion.

The ticketing business is so broken, and there are so many entrenched parties with an interest in keeping things the way they are, that a solution seems so far off that it’s difficult to envision. The U.K.-based platform Dice has tried a more equitable approach — basically, rather than flipping or scalping tickets, a buyer is refunded and gives the ticket back to the platform, which then sells it for face value — but it has not taken hold at scale in this country.

And while any results from Wednesday’s verdict seem far in the future, it is possible that a breakup could have at least some positive effect for fans. As one agent told Variety recently, “I have no idea how you’d fix ticketing — but it can definitely be better.”