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Indiana and 38 other states have joined a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation and its ticketing subsidiary Ticketmaster, leading some experts to wonder if the sheer volume of support for the lawsuit could lead to significant change for the ticketing and concert industry.
The lawsuit accuses the company of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and conducting business in a way that prevents competition in concerts, sponsorship, and ticket sales.
“The issue is kind of a broader one where Live Nation and Ticketmaster have their fingers in so many different markets that it’s difficult for artists and other ticketers to get in and be able to promote themselves without using one of Live Nation’s subsidiaries services in some way or another,” said Kendall Millard a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP and co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Law practice.
While not certain of the lawsuit’s outcome this early in the case, experts such as Millard say having so many states backing the call for change is a good sign something could happen.
“Whatever happens in Washington, this case is going to still go forward, because it’s really bipartisan, in the sense that you have states on both sides of the line that are now invested in this and could pursue it, even if the DOJ backed out,” he said.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita added the Hoosier state to the list of plaintiffs back in August. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It’s a big deal that so many states joined DOJ’s lawsuit against Live Nation, especially in this era where we haven’t seen as many aggressive antitrust enforcement actions,” said Morgan Harper, a lawyer and director of public policy and advocacy with the American Economic Liberties Project. “I think it’s a good sign that the current DOJ antitrust leadership is going in the right direction.”
The American Economic Liberties Project was launched in February 2020 to advocate for policy changes that address concentrated economic power.
The organization is part of the #BreakUpTicketmaster Coalition, launched in October 2022, which emboldened more than 100,000 people to send letters to the DOJ to investigate Live Nation’s monopolization of the industry, Harper said.
Public backlash against LiveNation reached a peak in November 2022 when Ticketmaster’s website reportedly couldn’t handle the demand for tickets to Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”
The New York Times reported at that time that the Department of Justice would be looking into the entertainment titan’s operations.
DOJ filed its lawsuit against Live Nation in May 2024, with 30 states immediately on board. Since then, Indiana and eight other states, plus the District of Columbia, have joined the fold.
As a company, Live Nation controls around 60% of concert promotions at major concert venues, directly managing more than 400 musical artists, according to the lawsuit. The company also owns or controls more than 265 concert venues in North America, including more than 60 of the top 100 amphitheaters in the country.
In the Indianapolis area alone, Live Nation has deals with six major venues, including Lucas Oil Stadium, Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the Old National Center and the Ruoff Music Center.
And through its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, the company has control of around 80% of ticketing at Live Nation venues.
The DOJ claims Live Nation-Ticketmaster participates in several forms of “anticompetitive conduct” including retaliating against venues that work with rivals, locking out competitors with exclusionary contracts, and acquiring competitors.
Live Nation’s response
When the lawsuit was initially filed, Live Nation Entertainment released a statement saying the suit doesn’t address the issues that concert fans are actually facing concerning rising ticket prices, services fees, and access to 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 statement read.
A spokesman for Live Nation pointed to a lengthy rebuttal to the lawsuit on the company’s website.
In an undated post on Live Nation’s website following the original complaint, Dan Wall, the company’s executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs, wrote that the DOJ’s lawsuit is anti-business, not anti-monopoly.
According to Wall, the DOJ believes antitrust law should target companies that have grown large enough to “dominate” markets, even if this domination was achieved through honest success in the market, instead of using practices that harm consumers.
Wall also criticized the DOJ’s attack on the vertical integration of venue ownership, concert promotion and ticketing, arguing the business strategy is mostly viewed as procompetitive by antitrust law.
“As the leading antitrust treatise states, ‘vertical integration is ubiquitous and … [in] the great majority of cases no anticompetitive consequences can be attached to it,’” he said.
Despite strong backing from states across the country, Live Nation Entertainment further argues the plaintiffs have no standing in the case in a motion to dismiss claim filed in the Southern District Court of New York on Oct. 30.
In the motion, Live Nation claims the plaintiffs have not proved the company inflicted a tying liability under the Sherman Antitrust Act, essentially requiring that, for an artist to work with Live Nation, they must agree to utilize all other services Live Nation provides.
“There is not a single instance—much less a broader commercial practice—of Live Nation giving an artist an ultimatum of the type, ‘if you want to rent an amphitheater I own, you have to take my concert promotion services,’” the lawsuit states. “That would be trivially easy to plead if Plaintiffs had any evidence that an artist attempted to rent a Live Nation venue but wanted to engage another promoter for their show.”
Independent companies struggle against Live Nation
Some companies actively avoid partnering with Live Nation when it comes to ticket sales and concert promotions, choosing to remain independent to sustain competition in the industry.
“Healthy competition fosters innovation, reduces costs, and creates better experiences for fans and artists. Without it, the industry risks becoming less diverse, more expensive, and far less dynamic,” Josh Baker, owner and co-founder of Indianapolis-based entertainment company MOKB Presents, told the Indiana Lawyer in an email.
MOKB Presents promotes and produces shows for several venues around the state, including the HI-FI in Indianapolis, the IU Auditorium in Bloomington, and the Ford Center in Evansville.
Baker said the company has never been approached by Live Nation to enter into a contract deal, but that they wouldn’t consider it even if they were.
“They likely understand that we wouldn’t consider their services because we prioritize independence and control over our ticketing process,” he said.
While the company occasionally uses Ticketmaster when required by third-party venues, MOKB otherwise partners with the company Tixr for ticket sales, allowing the company to maintain autonomy, Baker said.
However, the effort to maintain that autonomy is increasingly difficult because of the challenges Live Nation presents, Baker said.
MOKB relies on partnerships and networks like the National Independent Venue Association to build strategies that will support their work in the long run.
Millard said that while competition in the industry is ideal, he notes that Live Nation argues that their merger with Ticketmaster is where the industry is headed, and that it’s necessary for companies to be involved in several parts of the live entertainment business to be competitive.
The integration of Live Nation and Ticketmaster was challenged at its inception in 2010, when the two companies merged to become Live Nation Entertainment.
The DOJ settled a lawsuit against the company by agreeing to allow the companies to merge so long as they didn’t retaliate against concert venues for using a different ticketing company.
In 2020, that consent decree was extended another five and a half years, though the American Economic Liberties Project said the extension didn’t resolve any violations Live Nation made to the existing consent decree.
Lawsuit’s outcome?
The lawsuit against Ticketmaster could have several outcomes, but it’ll be a few years before one is seen, Millard said.
A trial is scheduled for March 2026.
Harper said Live Nation Entertainment has several conflicts of interest within their business lines in the live entertainment industry. To resolve the issue for other market players, those business lines must be separated.
Beyond structural changes, Harper said the company must be required to make behavioral changes, like being banned from engaging in exclusive contracts.
Both Harper and Millard agree that the upcoming change in presidential administration could impact the outcome of the lawsuit. The assistant attorney general, who oversees the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, is nominated by the president.
“I don’t know that the Republican Party is necessarily that much different with respect to this particular matter,” Millard said. “But that said, you know, once they get into the office, it may have different prosecutorial and litigation priorities.”
Harper believes that regardless, the number of states involved in the lawsuit provides durability to the case, so that even with the administration change, the case will sustain.
“Just seeing such broad support for this case against Live Nation-Ticketmaster, including from states that are both red states and blue states, it does make it seem like it’s less likely that there will be any change of course here,” she said. “But only time will tell.”•
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