The Justice Department sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation on Thursday, accusing the ticketing companies of blocking competition in the live entertainment industry.
The DOJ, which filed the antitrust lawsuit alongside 30 state and district attorneys general, alleges that Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s anti-competitive behavior deprives U.S. music fans of ticketing innovation and forces them to pay more than fans in other countries.
“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services,” he added. “It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
The DOJ argued that the ticketing companies engage in exclusionary practices to protect a self-reinforcing business model, in which they use revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships to lock in artists with exclusive promotion deals.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster, in turn, allegedly use their “powerful cache of live content” to get venues to sign long-term exclusive ticketing deals, according to a press release.
The ticketing companies have faced increased public scrutiny since Ticketmaster suffered a meltdown during singer Taylor Swift’s online presale in 2022, preventing thousands of fans from purchasing tickets for her “Eras Tour.”
In a statement, Live Nation said the “lawsuit won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows.”
“Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment, such as the fact that the bulk of service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin,” the company said.
“We will defend against these baseless allegations, use this opportunity to shed light on the industry, and continue to push for reforms that truly protect consumers and artists.”
Updated at 1:43 p.m. EDT.