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January 25, 2023

Bipartisan Senators Blast Live Nation for Squeezing Out Competition in Live Event Market
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Senators on the Judiciary Committee grilled the president and CFO of
Live Nation Tuesday, accusing the company of anti-competitive practices
since their merger with Ticketmaster in 2010. The hearing was spurred by
the Taylor Swift ticketing fiasco in November, when the Ticketmaster
site crashed during pre-sales, which the company blamed on an onslaught
of bots that purchase tickets to resell at higher cost. This is Senator
Amy Klobuchar at Tuesday's hearing.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar: "Today, Live Nation doesn't just dominate the
ticketing - it's about 70% of the big concert market - but also they own
many of the major venues. And for the venues that they don't own, they
tend to lock in on three-, five-, seven-year agreements, which means
that the competitors that are out there aren't able to even compete when
it comes to the ticketing. Finally, they dominate the promoting. … This
is all a definition of monopoly, because Live Nation is so powerful that
it doesn't even need to exert pressure. It doesn't need to threaten,
because people just fall in line."



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