Every so often, a company comes along that is so universally loathed that hating it together becomes almost a bonding experience for its customers. Ticketmaster was already one such case with its countless opaque add-on fees, alleged partnerships with scalpers, and anti-competition practices that have kept it in courtrooms for the past 30 years. But the company’s customer experience reached new depths of satisfaction when it merged with Live Nation in 2009.
An unholy and monopolistic merger that would have never seen the light of day in a country with actual regulatory oversight, this new hybrid company (Live Nation Entertainment) controlled both venues and ticket sales. Concertgoers were left with little other choice than to pay whatever exorbitant fees Live Nation’s Ticketmaster demanded or miss out on their favorite artists.
Naturally, these slimy practices eventually led to an antitrust lawsuit. Filed against Live Nation in 2024 by the DOJ—and later joined by 30 states—the case charged the entity that controls 80% of the primary ticketing for concerts at major venues with locking artists into exclusive promo deals and venues into long-term exclusionary contracts. Earlier this week, the case was finally settled, pending a judge’s approval. The baffling settlement terms indicate the companies won’t be broken up or even have to do anything that would fundamentally change their business practices—just a few concessions like allowing venues to use multiple ticketing systems and no longer forcing artists to use their promo services to play in one of the amphitheaters that they own. Thankfully, a few state attorneys general are planning to carry on with their own cases against Live Nation, which would continue with the same jury on Monday, March 16th.
Perhaps due to how bad for the fans and artists this proposed settlement is, new details have emerged from the federal prosecutor’s proceedings that breathe fresh life into our collective hatred of Live Nation. In a series of Slack messages from 2021 to 2023 presented to the court, two Live Nation regional ticket directors, Ben Baker and Jeff Weinhold, go back and forth bragging about the various ways they’re fleecing customers, whom they refer to as “so stupid.”
“Robbing them blind baby. That’s how we do,” wrote Baker, adding “I almost feel bad taking advantage of them.”
After Baker admitted he “gouged [fans] on ancil[lary] prices” to make up for a rise in base seat price, Weinhold chimed in that his preferred swindle was “preferred seating baby.”
In a statement, Live Nation dismissed the comments as an exchange between junior staffers that “absolutely doesn’t reflect our values or how we operate.”
But that exchange certainly does feel like an accurate representation of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster experience for anyone who’s used their services. In fact, they’ve been getting sued for this sort of thing since around the time of that 2009 merger.
Maybe they’ll turn over a new leaf this time. Or maybe people with increasingly less discretionary income will start foregoing the live music experience altogether, and corporate greed will yet again snuff out one of life’s joys. Either way, we’ve all got nosebleed seats to see how this saga plays out.
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