More Than Just About a Bad Merger - Live Nation Entertainment Uses Exclusionary Agreements to Maintain its Control Over Concerts and Tickets
It’s recently been rough for concert fans - particularly Taylor Swift supporters, appropriately called Swifties. Swifties are deeply loyal fans. So, when the legendary singer announced her long-awaited concert tour, a predictable outcome was a flood of consumers fighting to purchase concert tickets. Consumers rushed to buy tickets - only to be locked out of Ticketmaster’s system, forced to wait in long online lines, and face outrageously high ticket prices.
The origin of this problem predominantly derives from a merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation that should have never been approved by the Department of Justice in 2010. The fiasco generates a host of news stories detailing why the DOJ should have never approved the merger. But there is more to the story than just a bad merger. The newly created firm, known as Live Nation Entertainment (LNE), uses exclusive deals to lock up its control over concert venues and artists.
I have written extensively about the problems of exclusive deals (here, here, here, and here). And now, in a new op-ed published in The Sling, I detail not only why exclusive deals need to be prohibited but also how they exacerbate the already undue power of LNE and inhibit people from obtaining fair prices and tickets for their favorite artists.
The full article can be read on The Sling.
Enjoy. Thanks again for reading.
Image credit: Raphael Lovaski via Unsplash.