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Live Nation Entertainment Inc. heads to a jury trial on Monday over claims by the U.S. Justice Department and more than three dozen states that the nation’s largest concert promoter is illegally monopolizing the live music industry and should be forced to shed its Ticketmaster unit.
A jury in New York City federal court will hear evidence in a civil trial that could last five or six weeks about whether the largest U.S. venue owner and ticket seller violated antitrust law. If jurors side with the government, they’d also determine the amount of damages owed to the states on behalf of consumers, and then the judge would decide on other remedies, including a potential breakup.
The trial is moving ahead as settlement talks stalled despite Live Nation’s months-long effort to reach an agreement, Bloomberg reported.
The trial promises to offer a snapshot of the movers and shakers in the live entertainment industry. Live Nation’s Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold are expected to testify alongside other key figures in the music industry such as mogul Irving Azoff and Louis Messina, chief executive of the touring company that handles Taylor Swift’s tours.
Artists including Kid Rock, a major supporter of President Donald Trump, and Ben Lovett of folk rock band Mumford & Sons are also expected to appear.
Jury selection begins Monday, with opening statements set to start the next day. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian is presiding over the trial.
Live Nation had sought to bar anyone from serving on the jury who had ever purchased a ticket from Ticketmaster, something Subramanian indicated at a hearing on Friday he wouldn’t allow. The judge did say that he would probe any biases of each potential juror both for and against the company.
Live Nation has denied it operates an illegal monopoly even as it has endured nearly two decades of antitrust scrutiny. The company merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 following a lengthy antitrust investigation. At the time, the Justice Department required the combined company to pledge that it wouldn’t tie its services together or retaliate against venues that switched promoters or ticketing services.
In 2019, the Justice Department alleged that Live Nation had violated that promise and entered into a new settlement imposing an external monitor to ensure compliance and investigate any further disputes. The Biden administration then filed a lawsuit in 2024 seeking to break up the company.
‘Reinforcing’ monopolies
Antitrust enforcers allege that Live Nation operated “mutually reinforcing” monopolies to force venues and artists to use its services. The company controls more than 265 concert venues in North America and manages more than 400 musical artists, giving it more than 65% of the concert promotion market, the government says. It also controls 87% of the concert ticketing market through its Ticketmaster subsidiary, the DOJ says.
In central Indiana, Live Nation owns and operates Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, operates Old National Centre and Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park in Indianapolis, and promotes concerts at several other venues.
Live Nation argues those market shares are actually much lower. It says DOJ is improperly excluding a large number of venues, as well as ticketing services sold to venues for sporting events. If those things are factored in, it says its market share is a little more than 40%.
The Justice Department and a spokesperson for the New York Attorney General’s office, which is helping to lead the litigation on behalf of the states, declined to comment ahead of trial.
“Live Nation has manipulated the market and made itself untouchable by any competitor – not because it is better, but because it has created a monopoly,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “This is illegal, plain and simple, and artists, their fans, and the live venues that support them are hurting as a result.”
In a statement last month, Dan Wall, the company’s head of regulatory affairs said the “claim that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are responsible for high concert ticket prices and fees was, and is, false.” Wall, who represented the company in private practice before joining Live Nation in 2023, said the company would be willing to settle the case before trial, but that a breakup was “implausible and improper.”
The jury will decide whether Live Nation violated U.S. and state antitrust and consumer protection laws. Under federal antitrust law, any damages awarded to states would be automatically tripled. Live Nation would also be liable for attorneys fees.
The states have not yet made their total damages numbers public, and the final math is still being sorted out, but at a hearing on Friday Subramanian noted that their damages model equates to “less than $2” per ticket.
The government aims to show at trial that the company used its control over popular concerts to coerce venues into signing lengthy, exclusive contracts for its ticketing services rather than those offered by rivals. The DOJ and states also want to convince jurors that the company forced artists who wanted to play in its amphitheaters to use its concert promoters.
Live Nation argues that it has no obligation to work with outside concert promoters at venues it owns. The Justice Department argues the only solution is to unwind the 2010 merger.
The lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation was part of a key initiative of the Biden administration to combat corporate power across the economy. The Trump team has carried parts of that effort forward, choosing to settle most merger cases, while moving ahead with monopolization cases against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Live Nation.
“The only logical remedy is to break up the company,” said Gene Kimmelman, who was involved in the Justice Department’s 2010 merger review and is now a senior fellow at Yale University’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy. The government “tried a milder remedy. It allowed the merger to go through. It tried to pry open the market and none of it worked.”
With the government’s attempts to break up Google’s search business and Meta’s social media operations now having been rejected by courts, the Live Nation case remains as the “best opportunity for the government to win a breakup,” said Kimmelman, who also served in the Justice Department at the beginning of the Biden administration.
Breakup challenge
Emboldened by the government’s shortcomings in the Google and Meta cases, Live Nation says a breakup should never have been on the table given the government’s prior review of the deal.
David Dahlquist, who represented the Justice Department in the Google search remedy trial last year, will take point for the government. Live Nation is represented by lawyers from law firms Latham & Watkins and Cravath Swain & Moore.
Live Nation gained a slight boost last month when Subramanian ruled that the Justice Department can’t argue Live Nation monopolized the concert promotions business.
That decision by the judge should eliminate a potential breakup from the case, according to the company. “What remains is a limited set of business practice questions,” the company said in a statement.
The Justice Department disagrees and plans to offer evidence that Live Nation pressured venues into signing exclusive agreements with Ticketmaster by threatening to withhold desirable concerts. Those allegations could underpin a breakup, antitrust enforcers say.
Executives from rival ticketing companies including StubHub Holdings Inc., SeatGeek Inc. and AEG Presents LLC are expected to testify alongside representatives from popular concert venues such as New York’s Barclays Center, that venues that switched away from Ticketmaster lost out on popular concerts.
The first days of the trial are expected to focus on a fight between Ticketmaster and SeatGeek over the Barclays Center contract. In 2021, Barclays switched to SeatGeek, only to return to Ticketmaster two years later.
Executives from Barclays and SeatGeek are expected to testify in the first week, along with Live Nation’s Rapino.
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