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In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailLive Nation President Berchtold: We don't see enough profitability to sustain a monopoly as DOJ saysLive Nation President Joe Berchtold and CNBC's Julia Boorstin join 'Closing Bell' to discuss the DOJ's lawsuit against the company.
Persons: Berchtold, Joe Berchtold, Julia Boorstin Organizations: DOJ
New York CNN —The US Department of Justice is preparing to sue the country’s largest concert promoter and ticketing website Live Nation in the coming weeks for breaking America’s antitrust laws, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the Justice Department’s plans. The lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, will allege the ticketing company used its market-leading position to harm competition for live events, the Journal reported. Shares of Live Nation (LYV) dropped nearly 7% in premarket trading Tuesday. Live Nation and the Justice Department didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment about the Journal’s report. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, now billing itself as the “largest live entertainment company in the world.”
Persons: Department’s, Justice Department didn’t, Taylor Swift’s, Swift, Joe Berchtold, , Jack Groetzinger, SeatGeek Organizations: New, New York CNN, US Department of Justice, Wall Street Journal, Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster, Justice Department, Live, Republicans, Rivals Locations: New York, United States
“Live Nation has egregiously stonewalled my Subcommittee’s inquiry into its abusive consumer practices—making the subpoena necessary,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, who chairs the subcommittee. Ticketmaster has drawn the ire of Congress since its botched handling of presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Pre-sale tickets for “The Eras Tour” frustrated Swift fans across the country in a debacle that stayed in the headlines for weeks. Lawmakers grilled a top executive of Live Nation in January in a three-hour hearing. “I want to congratulate and thank you for an absolutely stunning achievement,” Blumenthal said to Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold during the January hearing.
Persons: Taylor Swift, Bruce Spingsteen, , Sen, Richard Blumenthal, Taylor, Swift, , couldn’t, ” Blumenthal, Joe Berchtold, ” Berchtold, concertgoers, – CNN’s Samantha Kelly, Jennifer Korn, Camila Bernal Organizations: New, New York CNN, Investigations, Nation, Ticketmaster, Democrat, Capital One, Live Nation, Democrats Locations: New York, Los Angeles
New York CNN —Live Nation Entertainment has Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to thank for propelling the live concerts organizer to its strongest quarterly results to date. “Today we delivered our strongest quarter ever and are on pace for a record 2023,” Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement. The ticket-industry giant said it has sold a record 140 million tickets so far this year, up 17% year-over-year and has already surpassed the 121 million tickets sold in all of 2022. To be sure, live concerts returned with a bang in 2023, with Taylor Swift and Beyoncé becoming the hottest tickets in town. So we’re very confident that both Ticketmaster, Live Nation are going to have big, strong years next year with a pipe full that will overcome this year’s numbers,” Rapino said in a call with analyst on Thursday.
Persons: Taylor Swift, Swifties, Taylor, Michael Rapino, Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Bunny, Jonas Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, , ” Rapino, Joe Berchtold, Organizations: New, New York CNN, Ticketmaster, Wall, Justice Department, DOJ, CNN Locations: New York
Swift's blockbuster Eras Tour injected billions into the US economy, and so will her movie. A quick recap: The demand for Swift's Eras Tour was so momentous that it literally broke Ticketmaster's website, prompting a Congressional hearing into its dominance of the ticketing industry. Swifties previously told Insider that they were spending upwards of $20,000 to attend the Eras Tour this past summer. Glendale, Arizona — the first stop on the Eras Tour — went as far as renaming itself " Swift City " when the artist came to town. Swift's impact on local economies even led to a shoutout from the Federal Reserve, who said the Eras Tour helped boost hotel revenue in Philadelphia when she came through town.
Persons: Taylor Swift, Swift, , haven't, Richard Blumenthal, Joe Berchtold, QuestionPro, Swifties, Travis Kelce, Chiefs windbreaker Swift, Kelce, doesn't, Aaron Rodgers Organizations: Federal Reserve, Service, NFL, Democrats, Live, CNN, Philadelphia Federal Reserve, Hollywood, Football, Kansas City Chiefs, Chicago Bears, Chiefs, Kansas City, Front Office, Fox, Kansas City Chiefs Pro Shop, The New York Post, New York Jets, MetLife, NBC Locations: Connecticut, Glendale , Arizona, Philadelphia, American, New Jersey, New York
“My family [last weekend] took the gamble to drive down the 5 hours to Nashville to see if we could get face value tickets,” she said. Another Twitter account called @ErasTourResell, which has 120,000 followers, has gained significant traction working with resellers who want to sell their tickets at face value. The trio of twenty-somethings aim to make Swift tickets as accessible to fans as possible without them overpaying or getting scammed. “So far we’ve posted somewhere between 2,700 and 3,000 tickets, all for face value,” the trio said in a DM conversation on Twitter. “It’s truly so rewarding seeing these tickets go to real fans for face value when the resale market has insane prices with people making three times the profit.
New York CNN —Live Nation posted a record $3.1 billion in revenue – up 73% from last year – in the first quarter of 2023, despite possible regulation and tremendous fallout from botched Ticketmaster sales for the Taylor Swift Eras tour. In an earnings release, the ticket-industry giant said over 19 million people attended events across 45 countries in the first quarter. In a single day last November, more than two million Taylor Swift tickets were sold on Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, a record for any artist. Live Nation stock rose about 15% on the news, to close at about $77 a share. Congressional hearingsLawmakers grilled Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold in a three-hour hearing in January, alleging the ticketing giant wields too much monopolistic control over the industry.
Ticketmaster is hiring a Director of Social, and the company is asking bravery of the new hire. Posted five days ago on LinkedIn, Ticketmaster is searching for a social media expert to take over its North America marketing leadership team. Months of messy ticket sales led by Ticketmaster have put the massive entertainment sales site under the microscope. The ticketing debacle even prompted a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled "That's the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment," where a bipartisan group of senators grilled Joe Berchtold, the president and CFO of Live Nation Entertainment. "For too long, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have wielded monopoly power anticompetitively, harming fans and artists alike."
Ticketmaster crashed once again, this time during ticket sales for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. The company also came under fire in November after its system was overwhelmed during ticket sales for Taylor Swift's "The Eras Tour." Joe Berchtold, the president and CFO of Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster's parent company, was called to testify before a Senate committee in January over the Taylor Swift ticket sales debacle. During his testimony to the Senate on January 24, Berchtold apologized to Swift and her fans, saying that "bot traffic" disrupted the ticket sales. This year's Eurovision Song Contest, which is organized by the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union, will be held from May 9 to 13 at Liverpool's 11,000-seat Liverpool Arena, per Eurovision's website.
Taylor Swift fans apparently have one of their own in the Department of Justice: Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Wall Street Journal reports he's a die-hard Swiftie after Garland made Swift references in Senate testimony. Even before ticketing chaos for Swift's Eras Tour, the DOJ was reportedly investigating Ticketmaster. He plunged head first into Swiftie-dom with both her debut album and "Fearless," which his two daughters would play when he drove them to school, Garland told the Journal. "My daughter sent me Midnights right away as a CD, which I appreciate is a little prehistoric at this point," Garland told the Wall Street Journal.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is "watching" Ticketmaster as tickets are about to go on sale for Beyoncé's upcoming tour. But the Senate Judiciary Committee has warned the embattled platform against having a repeat of the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco. "We're watching, @Ticketmaster," the Senate Judiciary Committee tweeted Thursday. But, in that Senate Judiciary Committee meeting last month, some senators argued Ticketmaster — which merged with Live Nation in 2010 — holds a monopoly over the ticket-buying business. Lawmakers and witnesses repeatedly hammered Live Nation Entertainment over the impact of its 2010 merger, which combined Live Nation and Ticketmaster into the larger firm.
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Ticketmaster is preparing to sell tickets for Beyonce's first tour in six years in a different way, hoping to avoid a repeat of last year's Taylor Swift debacle. Ticketmaster tweeted on Thursday that the demand to register for a chance to buy tickets for concerts in the nine cities in Group A, whose registration closed on Friday, exceeded the number of tickets by more than 800%. The North American leg of Beyonce's tour opens in Toronto on July 8 and closes in New Orleans on Sept. 27, according to the Ticketmaster website. After loud complaints from Taylor Swift fans, the company blamed more than 3.5 billion requests from fans, bots and scalpers for its overwhelmed website. On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee retweeted a news report about the Beyonce tour announcement and tweeted to @Ticketmaster, "We're watching."
New York CNN —Thursday afternoon will round out what has so far been a sobering earnings season for the Big Tech giants. Alphabet’s revenue will likely remain flat from last year and Amazon’s sales are expected to grow just shy of 6% year-over-year. All three companies’ profits are expected to fall from the year-ago quarter, with Amazon set to suffer the steepest drop with a decline of 40.6%. Then came the press conference, which led to a steep divergence between what the Fed thinks and what the Wall Street thinks. A cautionary tale: In mid-November, Ticketmaster’s site overloaded when fans tried to purchase pre-sale tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour.
In an Instagram post, the superstar posted simply “RENAISSANCEㅤ ㅤWORLD TOUR 2023.” Her website shows tour dates from May to September. Fans have been eagerly awaiting news of the tour, but many are already bracing themselves for a Ticketmaster disaster, following the recent Swift ticket debacle. On the Ticketmaster site, a search for Beyoncé tickets led to a page that says there are no upcoming events. Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would be selling tickets or if it can handle demand. In mid-November, Ticketmaster’s site overloaded when fans tried to purchase pre-sale tickets for just a handful of dates.
CNN —President Joe Biden is slated to announce new progress on his administration’s “competition agenda” during the fourth meeting of the Presidential Competition Council on Wednesday, taking steps to slash junk fees while calling on Congress to pass legislation targeting hidden and exorbitant fees across the travel, entertainment, utility and hospitality industries. Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Biden will announce that the CFPB will propose a rule slashing excessive credit card late fees in a move the White House says will reduce those fees from $30 to $8 on average, saving American consumers as much as $9 billion a year. “Over a decade ago, Congress banned excessive credit card late fees, but companies have exploited a regulatory loophole that has allowed them to escape scrutiny for charging an otherwise illegal junk fee,” Chopra said in a statement to CNN. “Today’s proposed rule seeks to save families billions of dollars and ensure the credit card market is fair and competitive.”On a call with reporters Tuesday, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said Biden will also use the meeting to call on Congress to pass a “Junk Fee Prevention Act,” targeting four types of excessive fees — excessive online concert, sporting event, and entertainment ticket fees; airline fees for families sitting together on flights; exorbitant early termination fees for TV, phone and internet services; and surprise resort and destination fees. “But they also reduce competition and make it more difficult for innovators and new businesses to break into markets and offer better services at lower prices.”Earlier this year, lawmakers grilled Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold following a ticket sales debacle over exorbitant ticketing fees.
Live Nation Entertainment is composed of Live Nation, an events promoter and venue operator, and Ticketmaster, a ticket sales giant. This is not the first time consumers have called for the breakup of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. While Live Nation Entertainment arguably has a monopoly on the industry, a monopoly in itself is not illegal in the United States. The band regularly interacts with Live Nation Entertainment. It’s unclear what's next for Live Nation Entertainment.
Berchtold will argue that enforcement of the BOTS Act, a 2016 law aimed at improving online ticket sales, is lacking and call for new legislation. According to the written remarks, Berchtold will also comment on "unprecedented demand" for Taylor Swift tickets and bot traffic that was "three times" higher than it has experienced in the past. Bot traffic is typical for ticket sales, especially during popular events like Swift's highly anticipated tour. "While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause our sales," Berchtold is expected to say. As we said after the onsale, and I reiterate today, we apologize to the many disappointed fans as well as to Ms.
Amy Edwards demonstrates against the live entertainment ticket industry outside the U.S. Capitol January 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Senate Judiciary Committee slammed concert giant Live Nation on Tuesday, calling on activists and artists to speak to competition in the ticketing industry following a botched sale of Taylor Swift tickets in November. Opponents intensified their complaints in November when presale tickets for Swift's Eras Tour were plagued by disruptions and slow queues. Live Nation was supposed to open up sales for 1.5 million verified fans ahead of general public ticket sales. The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation's practices, however, that probe predates the Swift ticket sale fiasco.
Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold apologized to Taylor Swift and fans for the ticket debacle. Berchtold said that the company faced bot attacks during the Swift ticket sale, impacting service, and apologized to Swift and fans. This power over the entire live entertainment industry allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic interests over the primary ticketing market," Groetzinger said. "This is all a definition of monopoly, because Live Nation is so powerful that it doesn't even need to exert pressure," Klobuchar said. Lawrence, who's written for the New York Times on Live Nation and its impact on artists, said Live Nation often functions as three different things: promoter, venue, and ticketing company.
Some people may even find a kind of beauty in the way the system was designed to keep special interests in check. “To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, who called the hearing. “You can’t have too much consolidation — something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well.”(Nice one, Ames.) ICYMI, tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour, which begins in March, went up for pre-sale on Ticketmaster in mid-November. But the bigger question of whether Live Nation is a monopoly is up to the Department of Justice.
The venues controlled by Live Nation set fees that are “consistent with the other venues in the marketplace,” he said. Entertainment industry pushes back at Ticketmaster’s dominanceMembers of the entertainment industry and one rival spoke out against Ticketmaster’s dominance in the industry. Andrew Harnik/APClyde Lawrence, a singer-songwriter on the witness panel, explained how the company acts as a promoter, a venue and the ticketing company, which eats into performing artists’ revenues. Artists, he said, have no leverage over Live Nation. Lawmaker says Ticketmaster merger should ‘be on the table’Lawmakers repeatedly questioned the US government’s past handling of the Live Nation merger with Ticketmaster.
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The president of Ticketmaster parent Live Nation (LYV.N), Joe Berchtold, is expected to testify on Tuesday before Congress that "industrial-scale ticket scalping" was to blame for the company's problems late last year in managing the sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets. Ticketmaster, which has been unpopular with fans for years, has drawn fresh heat from U.S. lawmakers over how it handled ticket sales for Swift's "Eras" tour, her first in five years. Experts say that Ticketmaster commands more than 70% market share of primary ticket services for major U.S. concert venues. In November, Ticketmaster canceled a planned ticket sale to the general public for Swift's tour after more than 3.5 billion requests from fans, bots and scalpers overwhelmed its website. A previous Ticketmaster dispute with the Justice Department culminated in a December 2019 settlement extending the consent agreement into 2025.
“It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans,” Swift wrote on Instagram in November. The mergerCriticism of Ticketmaster’s dominance dates back decades, but the Swift ticketing incident has once again turned that issue into a dinner table discussion at many households. Concert promoter Live Nation and ticketing company Ticketmaster, two of the largest companies in the concert business, announced their merger in 2009. ‘Customers are the ones that pay the price’While irate fans were left scrambling to wade through the Swift ticket confusion, their collective anger caught lawmakers’ attention. To me, what happened with the Swift concert tickets was not necessarily the result of Ticketmaster being the dominant player in the industry,” he said.
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Live Nation Entertainment is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidWASHINGTON (Reuters) -Live Nation Entertainment President and Chief Financial Officer Joe Berchtold will testify at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday after its Ticketmaster’s unit had problems managing the sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets, the committee said. Live Nation did not immediately comment. “As Live Nation leverages its power across the concert ecosystem to increase its profits, concertgoers see higher prices, and artists experience challenging touring dynamics,” Lawrence wrote in a New York Times essay last month. In November, Ticketmaster denied any anti-competitive practices and noted it remained under a consent decree with the Justice Department following its 2010 merger with Live Nation.
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Live Nation Entertainment is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2019. Ticketmaster has come under harsh criticism from fans and lawmakers, accusing it of having too much control over the market for concert tickets. Berchtold’s testimony said Live Nation has invested over $1 billion over the years to improve Ticketmaster. “Whether it meets the legal definition of a monopoly or not, Live Nation’s control of the live music ecosystem is staggering.”Ticketmaster has denied any anti-competitive practices and remains under a consent decree with the Justice Department following its 2010 merger with Live Nation. Live Nation included letters of support with its testimony including one from singer Garth Brooks who asked” My question is, as a country, why don’t we just make scalping illegal?
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