There are a lot of things to be angry about in the world today, but Ticketmaster is always one of them. Spare them a little rage if you have any left to give. When, two years ago, we heard that DOJ was moving forward with their anti-trust suit against Live Nation we all knew it was too good to be true, and, yup, it was too good to be true. The DOJ folded with not even a slap on the wrist.

And because of that, it seems that a number of state attorneys general are considering folding as well. Here’s a form from NIVA to help you send your state’s attorney general to keep fighting.

Bipartisan group of states refuse to sign settlement between Justice Department and Live Nation:

New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio and Kansas are just a few of the states continuing the lawsuit.

“The settlement recently announced with the U.S. Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers. We cannot agree to it,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

The Justice Department and some 40 attorneys general first launched the lawsuit against Live Nation in 2024 under the Biden administration, alleging the concert giant had built an illegal monopoly over live events by controlling ticketing, venues and artist promotion. In effect, they argued, Live Nation had pushed out competitors and locked venues into exclusive arrangements that harmed both artists and fans.

At least the suit gave us some popcorn:

Live Nation Employees Boast About Gouging Fans With Fees:

Baker, who oversees ticketing for Live Nation’s venue nation unit, called some increased prices “fucking outrageous,” with Weinhold replying that “I have VIP parking up to $250 lol.”

“I almost feel bad taking advantage of them,” Baker replied.

In another exchange, Baker shared a screenshot of premier parking costs, further stating “robbing them, blind, baby, that’s how we do.” Later in the exchange, Baker said, “I gouge them on ancil prices to make up for it,” referring to extra ancillary fees on more standard tickets.

Satire, but who can tell:

Live Nation restricts ticket buying and selling exclusively to bots:

“Our platform optimizes for multiple devices logged in at once and spamming the queue,” notes Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. “Once ticket sales are live, that’s when the bots buy up the max tickets per person until they are all sold out in under 1 minute, though our software engineers are trying to get that down to 30 seconds.”

Rapino adds, “Yes artists send out codes and have fan presales, but we always ensure that all of the bots get those too, since it’d be really unfair if these hardworking robots had to wait until general sale day.” […]

The announcement has been met with widespread support from StubHub, Viagogo, and a series of shell companies that, when contacted for comment, all responded within 0.003 seconds with identical statements saying they were “just regular fans.”

The list of Live Nation’s sins will not be news to anyone who has been following this blog for any length of time:

“Wherein three national corporations control nearly all of San Francisco’s live music.”“Ticketmaster is recruiting professional scalpers who cheat its own system to expand its resale business and squeeze more money out of fans”.“Live Nation admits putting tickets straight on the resale market”.“Live Nation and DOJ reach ‘settlement’ that does nothing but extend the time period of the consent decree, with no fine.”“Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who personally ordered that Jamal Khashoggi be kidnapped and dismembered alive with a bone saw, now owns 6% of Live Nation / TicketMaster.”“Big Music Needs to Be Broken Up to Save the Industry”.Wherein John Oliver reminds us that there are lots of things to be angry about, but one of them is still TicketMaster.

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