Ticketmaster Settlement Leaves Many Feeling Frustrated And Unheard

It seems like people griping about Live Nation and Ticketmaster has been going on for decades now. There has been an antitrust lawsuit making its way through the courts, but the latest announcement is that it has been settled, and nobody seems pleased about this. 

According to Seattletimes.com,
‘The announcement by the Justice Department at the start of the trial in federal court in Manhattan was greeted angrily by Judge Arun Subramanian, who said no one informed him of the tentative deal until late Sunday even though a term sheet for a possible settlement was signed on Thursday. “It’s entirely unacceptable,” he said.’ 

The individual states that are involved in the lawsuit have asked for a mistrial. Lawyers representing Texas said they were not pleased with the deal and have not yet decided if they were going to agree to it. The lawyers for Live Nation obviously said that they were not in favor of a mistrial, and as of this writing Live Nation and the Department of Justice were not available for any kind of comment. 

Why the lawsuit?

The purpose of the antitrust proceeding was to break up the Live Nation, Ticketmaster Association with the claim that it was a monopoly and squelched competition. 

The case was brought back in 2024 during the Biden administration. and accused live nation of using “long-term contracts to keep venues from choosing rival ticketers, blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues that they could lose money and fans if they don’t choose Ticketmaster.” 

Ticketmaster was established back in 1976 by Peter Gadwa, Albert Leffler, Gordon Gunn III, and Jerry Nelson. Originally the company licensed software and sold hardware for the purpose of selling tickets to venders.