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NetChoice Applauds the Announcement of an Investigation Into Failures in The Concert Ticket Market

Ten years ago, the Department of Justice approved the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation via a 10-year consent decree that expires in 2020. This approved vertical merger allowed the dominant ticketing platform to merge with the largest promoter of concerts but we are now seeing how this dominance is being abused to harm consumers.
“Since the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger approval, Ticketmaster grew to dominate the primary ticket sales market, obtaining a 70-80% market share,”
said Carl Szabo, Vice President and General Counsel at NetChoice.
“Investigations have found sizeable holdbacks of tickets from public sales allowing Ticketmaster to abuse its market position to unfairly raise prices for fans.”
“Ticketmaster, not content with dominating the primary ticket sales market is using its market power to monopolize the ticket resale market too,”
continued Szabo.
“Ticketmaster is trying to force consumers to giveaway or sell tickets only through Ticketmaster’s own platform so Ticketmaster can collect yet another service fee.”
“The DOJ must engage in a deep review of anti-competitive practices by Ticketmaster and make the concert ticket market serve consumers once again.”