The Live Nation & Ticketmaster Settlement Explained 

Benjamin Kenyon  

Rap/Hip-Hop Journalist

Anyone who’s attended a ticketed live event in the last few years can agree that the cost is absurd across the board. The prices of food, soft drinks, and spirits make airport prices look like great deals. Fees that are hidden all throughout the purchasing process until checkout pile up and often end up costing as much as a substantial percentage of the original ticket price.  

 All of this typically ends up making attending a concert or sporting event a multi-hundred-dollar event, if the tickets themselves aren’t already a couple hundred bucks. Concerts and other live entertainment events shouldn’t be this inaccessible. Obviously, the organizers, artists, and other involved parties need to make a profit to justify putting on the event, but the current system is ridiculous.  

 Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster are in the middle of a massive lawsuit filed in 2024 by over 20 states and the Department of Justice. The lawsuit alleges that the companies have been engaging in monopolistic practices, claiming that they control more than 80% of the live event ticket market in the United States, and are using that dominance to unjustly squeeze both consumer and vendor pockets. At the time of filing, the DOJ called for the companies to be broken up completely. Since the suit has been filed, almost 40 states are now involved in the case.  

 This market dominance allowed the company to thrust mysterious and unexplained fees onto tickets that are already skyrocketing in price. They get away with these fees and shady practices because their control of the industry had previously gone unchecked by governing bodies. Venues often couldn’t do anything to object to Live Nation’s demands and policies because of their monopoly.  According to the lawsuit, Live Nation and its subsidiaries, including Ticketmaster, controlled over 80% of the US live event ticket market.  

 The DOJ has reached a settlement with Live Nation, which did not result in the breaking up of the two companies but did set new restrictions on Live Nation’s business practices.  Here are some, but not all, of the terms the settlement forces upon Live Nation: 

 Seven of the states involved with the case are accepting the settlement terms, while over 30 are going on with the trial in hopes of a greater punishment being levied towards Live Nation.  

 “How did this conglomerate come to be so powerful?” you may be asking. In 2010, Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged, creating an unimpeachable giant in the live-event ticket economy. Over the next decade-plus, the conglomerate has been at the center of several scandals and controversies. Swifties remember the debacle that surrounded Ticketmaster’s handling of sales for Era’s Tour concerts in 2022.  

 When the sale opened, Ticketmaster’s website crashed and placed real, human fans into an online waiting queue that most never saw the end of. Bots scooped up most of the tickets, and resellers had a field day, marking up many tickets up to 10x their original price. Ticketmaster’s handling of the situation was one of the early events that began to anger the public as well as lawmakers 

 You may have seen some of the content of the trial online, as comments from high-ranking Live Nation employees have been making the social media rounds. One of these comments came from an executive named Ben Baker. In a conversation about raising parking fees for Live Nation events, he messaged a coworker, “robbing​​​​ them blind, baby. That’s how we do.”  

 These two anecdotes are emblematic of the rot that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have brought upon the live-event ticketing industry. Fans are put last on the company’s list of priorities, yet if they want to take part in events associated with the company, they have no other option, as competitors have not been given the opportunity to compete.  

 Time will tell if these changes help protect live-event attendees from unnecessary costs. Live Nation must legally obey the agreed-upon demands, but it is yet to be seen if loopholes are found or if the demands will even be effective in protecting consumers.