Live Nation puts ticket sales fix on performers and legislators

Live Nation Entertainment, the company that has owned Ticketmaster since 2010, knows that it’s hard for music fans. Really, it is. That’s why the company, which faced massive public opposition earlier this year in the wake of a Taylor Swift ticket sales collapsesuggest a solution (sort of).

As part of Live Nation’s Quarterly earnings report On Thursday, company Also announced Its support for what is called the “Fair Ticket Act”. in separate blogEntertainment Goliath outlined a range of proposed legislative reforms. These include giving performers the ability to set their own ticket resale rules, banning speculative ticket selling (i.e., speculators who lie), expanding restrictions on automated ticket buying programs, cracking down on resale platforms, and forcing more transparent ticket prices.

Notably, these are all things Live Nation and Ticketmaster could choose to do internally — but instead, the company and its affiliates are taking the issue to lawmakers. “We already follow many common sense policies and are ready to make additional changes, but we can’t do it alone,” Live Nation wrote. “We need the entire industry and policymakers to stand up for fans and artists.”

Gizmodo has reached out to Live Nation to learn more about internal steps the company may be taking to address these concerns, but had not heard back as of this publication.

In recent months, the corporate concert giant has faced widespread criticism and questioning T-Swift Stands on TikTok and US Senators Both. Amid rising awareness of the amazing $1,000+ ticket prices, and after a few high-profile sales pitches where potential customers couldn’t get past Tix and Ticketmaster Fake Bad Bunny passesLive Nation became a topic multi-state investigations investigation by the Ministry of Justice.

He was on the company too Endure a Senate hearing in January with the Judicial Committee. During that hearing, Live Nation blamed the proliferation of online ticket-buying bots and scalpers for failing to adequately accommodate customer needs. The company’s chief financial officer, Joe Berchtold, also claimed that Ticketmaster does not set high ticket prices.

However, lawmakers are still concerned with the issue of monopoly and lack of competition in the live event space. On Thursday, about a month after the committee hearing, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee wrote a letter Recommending that the Department of Justice continue to examine Live Nation and its potential anti-competitive practices.

“For too long, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have used non-competitive monopoly power, to the detriment of fans and artists alike,” the Senators wrote in their February 23 letter. second letter Klobuchar penned it for Ticketmaster in the past three months.

We asked Live Nation a number of questions about the competition at and after the hearing, but they largely failed to answer them… Live Nation’s responses amounted to “trust us.”

Klobuchar and Lee’s appeal was sent to the Department of Justice the same day as the Live Nation policy proposal. On the same day the company posted record sales and revenue of $16.7 billion — up 44% from the pre-pandemic 2019 benchmark.