TJ Chambers
© istockphoto.com
Organisations being frequently investigated, or repeatedly sued, doesn’t necessarily by itself prove guilt, or even malpractice.
But.
Possibly the regularity of accusations, disputes, and litigation surrounding live entertainment, and in particular some of its leading operators, is in part reflective of a disconnect, or tension, between the industrialisation and monetisation of cultural creation and its consumption.
State / Industry / Consumer Perspectives
Within the Post WWII social-democrat, liberal ideology, the state has promoted social justice, a reduction of inequality through (semi) regulated markets, (a level of) income redistribution, and universally accessible public services like education, healthcare and housing (although increasingly disrupted by free-market forces), with a varying appreciation of the value of culture i.e. with the highbrow-arts supported by donations, grants and subsidies, but with the pop-arts typically having to self-finance, with frequent media/moral outrage when new fads, fashions or formats failed to conform to societal norms of expression.
Live entertainment, and in particular live music, is a relatively young industrial sector – given the electrification of music and then the touring of rock n’roll being less than 70-years old (whilst accepting various jazz and blues artists led the way before that) – and so is still establishing codes of behaviour, working practices, technological standards and relationships with regulatory authorities and other event stakeholders.
The prevailing commercial environment and thus organisational practise of the industry has been to embrace sector consolidation, with a corporate focus on horizontal and/or vertical expansion via a relentless programme of acquisitions, a seemingly endless search for incremental revenue opportunities via branded and franchised operations, and the adoption of least-cost processes (for example, the widespread externalisation of staff to agencies, freelancers and/or zero-hour contracts), and so is arguably increasingly adrift or unconnected to the audiences appreciation of ‘priceless’ emotive experiences related to their output, i.e. the ‘art’.
The commerce-first ecosystem focuses almost exclusivity on the scale of the audience and revenues as the key measurement of event impact, whilst fans, listeners, spectators, supporters, or viewers, value the end-product with a different set of criteria i.e. immersion within the spectacle which can release personally powerful and valuably transformative intimacies.
Entertainment conglomerates with their well renumerated elite executives, centralised professional administrations complete with compensation committees and quarterly P+L’s, tend to be less intimately connected to the lives of their audiences, suppliers, or even their own workforce.
So, they can find it difficult to relate to mundanities such as the ‘cost-of-living’crisis, or even the broader concerns such as individual or societal education, health, and mental wellbeing achieved through the ability to attend events.
Furthermore, as their organisational purpose is more singularly oriented towards the pursuit of profit, and so relentlessly focuses on that KPI, some operators then appear to resent any limitation forced on them by the conventional niceties of modern corporate behaviour i.e. full and consistent implementation of Health and Safety standards, Collective Bargaining agreements, Trade Union representation, Tax registration and liabilities, Disability inclusion compliance, as well as the KYC, AML, Anti-Bribery and Foreign Corruption Practices legislation etc.
To be clear it’s not that all, or indeed any, entertainment companies are deliberately and routinely flouting regulations, or of arm-twisting their suppliers (with retrospective period-based discounts on event logistics and production services), or of intimidating talent (with territorial or time-based restrictions over concert or festival appearances), or of creating byzantine off-show P+L advertising and sponsorship packages (that fail to directly reward the artist but make the promoter-producer, venue or commercial partner happy) or of price-gouging the end-user/ticket-buyer with convoluted, dynamically priced inventory.
It’s just, that’s the live entertainment impresario business model.
Lie. Steal. Cheat. Repeat. (Only joking.)
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Too Big, So A Problem
Additionally, the scale of these vertically-aligned consolidators may now be an operational disadvantage, as multi-territorial operators typically interact numerically with more third-party service providers than smaller enterprises, thus increasing the number of transactions and so the volume of disputes or disagreements can also reflect that increased scale, and international expansion may also highlight differing cultural, economic or regulatory issues to be resolved – what works in Detroit may not apply just as easily in Dortmund, or Jakarta.
Additionally, with the funnelled architecture of internet on-sales, demand will often exceed supply of an individual event – arguably deliberately designed to ensure additional performances will then be released, or less positively from a consumer perspective to maximise event revenues.
So, potential ticket-buyers are frustrated by the online experience (even when they can gain access to the queue), or even when the company maintains a consistency of product offering, and at a previously advertised price i.e. without the application of surge-pricing.
An example of the unintended consequences of a tour being ‘sold out’ is that it potentially impacts a high number of (would be and/or actual) customers and thus attracts media coverage, political interest and/or class actions, most notably the Taylor Swift ‘Eras Tour’ onsale (15th November 2022) which directly led to lawmakers across the U.S. introducing legislation to increase transparency and fairness in online ticket sales, as well as triggering antitrust concerns of the dominant market player.
Or less notably, where a European ticketing platform that may have breached the EU Digital Services Act and ‘crossed the threshold of undue influence’ whereby if a consumer didn’t select the ticket insurance up-sale it would ‘bear the full risk’ of potentially missing that event’ i.e. pressure-selling (Urteil: Eventim darf Ticketversicherung nicht manipulativ aufdrängen, 01.04.25 – https://www.vzbv.de/urteile/urteil-eventim-darf-ticketversicherung-nicht-manipulativ-aufdraengen).
There are many, many other examples that could be quoted, but it should be noted that not all complaints lead to legal actions, so the number of incidents perhaps unresolved, or not followed through, is obviously larger than those reported.
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Live Risk
The presentation of a live performance is always accompanied by a level of risk: to the participating artist, the production crew, or even to the attending audience, whether relating to the event’s power supply, the staging, onsite audio-visual equipment, the securing of entry and exits and the management of overall capacity, as well as food and beverage hygiene and licensing etc.
Similarly, the ticketing of events has various IP, content copyright, URL management, system licensing, bot-protection, cybersecurity and consumer data protection requirements which also require risk-assessments and specialised lawyers.
So, as the entertainment conglomerates have grown, they have identified the need to retain more, and more, lawyers to assist their companies steer through the day-to-day operations, as well as deal with ‘extricating the excrement from the rotating air conditioner’.
This ready access to lawyers (either in-house or on retainer) arguably also impacts the corporate mindset, with some organisations believing legal disputes are an inevitable cost of doing business and that any malpractice (real or imagined), is to be defended until the nuisance goes away.
Whether at employment tribunals; (alleged) #MeToo abuse case NDAs; the wrongful death of a drum technician due to stage roof collapse in Canada (‘Scott should not have died’: Inquest begins into fatal Radiohead stage collapse, Mark Gollow, 25th March 2029 – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/inquest-scott-johnson-death-1.5069930); mass panic and wrongful deaths at a festival in Houston, Texas (Live Nation Entertainment incurred losses of $446.5M in excess of is insurance recovery relating to insufficient crowd control and the seeking of compensatory and punitive damages for the 2021 Astroworld tragedy – LNE 2025 Annual Report, Form 10-K, page 37 – https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/annual-reports/content/0001335258-26-000009/0001335258-26-000009.pdf); the ongoing corporate manslaughter probe of a crowd crush and deaths outside the doors of a major London venue; or against regulatory investigations relating to antitrust behaviour (https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-and-plaintiff-states-v-live-nation-entertainment-inc-and-ticketmaster-llc), exclusivity of venue management and associated ticket distribution rights (Pearl Jam: Taking on Ticketmaster, Eric Boehlert, 28th December 1995 – https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/), territorial exclusion clauses relating to festival appearances (for example Coachella’s 1,300 miles and five months exclusion ‘radius clause’ against artists appearing elsewhere – https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/cacdce/5:2024cv00548/918371/28/); fraudulent ticket pricing (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-sues-live-nation-ticketmaster-engaging-illegal-ticket-resale-tactics-deceiving-artists-consumers), opaque management of ticket manifests ((https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/reports/Ticket_Sales_Report.pdf), etc.
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Again, one way to judge an industry, and its leading companies, is to look at the frequency of alleged ill-behaviour and not just the outcome of the various investigations, court rulings, regulatory findings, and settlement amounts involved.
To any dispassionate observer they would have to note that lawyers for various live entertainment companies (again with the disclaimer, whilst acknowledging that they absolutely have the right to defend themselves in court, and that whilst frequent litigation can impact perception of any defendants it does not necessarily equate to guilt) are extremely busy.
And that their clients have many of the attributes of a pantomime villain i.e. the leadership have all convinced themselves they are the good guys – selflessly working on behalf of the artists (especially the artists) and the audience.
Whilst their CEO / ‘iconic’ leader (often bearded, tanned, and viewed side-on gazing into middle-distance with a textured background of industrial windows and bare brick) speaks articulately and on-message during company earnings calls, so that that industry peers, commentators and even competitors offer their begrudging respect.
That despite their multi-year use of restrictive, if not monopolistic, self-serving practices, with a constant drip-drip-drip of consumer, media or political outrage, and every few years some regulatory backlash, the leadership always claims its reputation as a controversial or ‘villainous’ company is undeserved.
Or not as bad as others.
‘Others’ typically being illegal bots, jealous competitors, or unauthorised brokers and/or the secondary markets.
Or they claim despite appearances, it’s all a misunderstanding of the actual flow of data, monies, rights, and services. And that the site didn’t freeze for everyone, or that a limited number of tickets, were available at entry-level pricing, and that despite pre-registering for an event that doesn’t guarantee access.
Or that rising prices are reflective of inflationary pressures of logistics, production, staffing and talent, and not in any way related to executive compensation packages and profit margins.
Or even when found guilty, on all counts, the judge and jury process have apparently all got it wrong.
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Live Nation-Ticketmaster U.S. Antitrust Verdict
On 15th April 2026, a jury in the Southern District of New York returned a verdict on all federal and state law claims against Live Nation Entertainment and its wholly owned subsidiary Ticketmaster, finding that the companies unlawfully monopolised primary ticketing services and tied their managed amphitheatres to Live Nation concert promotion services.
The verdict came despite the U.S. Department of Justice earlier settling mid-trial with Live Nation (with a $280M settlement fund and some behavioural remedies) which prompted thirty-three states and the District of Columbia to continue the litigation on their own as they did not believe the DOJ’s settlement adequately remedied the various violations of the Sherman Act.
The jury found that the unlawful conduct harmed competition in each state.
The jury also found that residents in those states were overcharged by $1.72 per ticket with respect to Ticketmaster’s unlawful monopolisation in the market for primary concert ticketing services.
And the U.S. States have continued to seek from the Judge a divestiture of Ticketmaster, albeit apparently such remedies in antitrust conduct cases are rare.
Live Nation immediately issued a statement: ‘The jury’s verdict is not the last word on this matter’. (https://newsroom.livenation.com/statements/statement-from-live-nation-entertainment/)
It also stated that the award only applies to tickets sold to customers at 257 venues (approx. 20% of all Ticketmaster’s U.S. retail tickets) in certain states for the past five years, estimating that the damages figure would therefore be less than $150M (albeit with Live Nation accruing $450M in its Q1 2026 earnings report).
Live Nation also stated that the judge should throw out the verdict, or at a minimum order a new trial, arguing that the case was tainted by inflammatory evidence (‘robbing them blind, baby’), flawed jury instructions, ‘against the clear weight of evidence’ and ‘legally indefensible’ findings.
So, a JMOL (Judgement as a Matter of Law) Motion from Live Nation.
And then an appeal.
So, more lawyers and for longer.
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U.K. Investigation Into Live Music Competition
Meanwhile in the UK, on a Bank Holiday Sunday (24th May 2026) the UK Parliament’s Business and Trade Committee called for a full market investigation into the live music industry by the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) with significant concerns regarding Live Nation UK’s dominant position in the market and the resulting ‘climate of fear’ reported by industry participants: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cmselect/cmbeis/128/report.html.
Key findings of the report were that Live Nation UK controls approximately 58% of the tickets sold in the live music market, which increased to 66% when including its affiliate companies, for example SJM Concerts.
The committee highlighted that Live Nation’s business practices created barriers for independent artists and promoters, limiting their opportunities in the market noting the use of long-term agreements with restrictive exclusivity terms, making access to its venues contingent on participation in its festivals.
It also revealed that many industry players had submitted evidence anonymously due to fears of reprisal, which indicated a ‘troubling environment for competition’.
The committee has therefore urged the CMA to undertake an investigation before the end of 2026 to ensure fair competition and protect the interests of consumers, artists, and independent businesses in the live music sector.
In response, Live Nation UK said the report ‘misrepresents the UK live music industry by relying on inaccurate data and unsupported conclusions’.
It further stated Live Nation ‘… will engage constructively with any process that benefits artists, fans and the wider industry, but debate about the sector must be based on evidence, not allegation and hearsay.’
Once again only they truly understand the market.
They and their lawyers.
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Until the next time.
TJ_Chambers 