The Current - Ticketmaster has ‘broken’ the concert industry

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust case against Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster this week. Canadians are paying attention because there could be implications in Canada, both for how the company operates and a similar case that is trying to move forward — why are concert tickets so expensive, and can this make them more affordable? 

What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers. Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block, or how R.F. Kwong feels about Taylor Swift. Check out bookends with Mateo Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. If you were one of the millions of fans who tried and failed to get Taylor Swift tickets a couple of years ago, you might not be ready to shake it off just yet. You will, of course, remember the long waits, a crashed website, resale prices that required a line of cruise.

credit to cover the ticket price. Now that Erez Tour fiasco has laid the groundwork for a landmark trial. The U.S. Department of Justice is taking Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation to court for anti-competitive practices. The department says Live Nation has monopolized the live music industry, owning the ticket selling platform and major venues, and this, they argue, has led to a worse experience for customers. The current intern, Arden McLeod, spoke with people in downtown Toronto, about what it's like trying to see your favorite musician. In my opinion, Ticketmaster have a complete monopoly on the market, and we need to dismantle them.

So I feel like I'm kind of getting ripped off, but I also want to enjoy a concert. Purchasing anything online, especially with concerts and stuff, it's kind of like this really anxiety-inducing experience where I don't know if I'm going to get robbed or not, or whether I'm going to get my seats. Seat geek, that's really good for me, just because, like, last minute, the ticket's really cheap.

Ticketmaster is like my last resort. The biggest problem is the fact that it always fluctuates in price, even though you might get in at the same time as someone else. The queue, the waiting room, it's just a whole thing. We call it like Ticketmaster War at that point. Those folks might want to pay attention to what happens in the United States because it could have implications here. Just last month, the Consumers Council of Canada applied for permission

to sue Live Nation and Ticketmaster on similar grounds as the U.S. case. Vass Bednar is the managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, It is a new think tank looking at Canada's economic resilience, sovereignty, and competitiveness. She's with me in studio. Good morning. Good morning. A lot of anger there and rage from people who have had bad experiences in trying to get tickets. No left for Ticketmaster. I actually haven't found any evidence online, even of artists sort of praising the firm.

And I think that's kind of interesting. This is a firm that is being accused in court, as I said, of anti-competitive practices, that they control the venues, they control the ticketing, they manage many of the artists. What does the Department of Justice need to prove in this case? It has to prove that anti-competitive behavior, that they abuse their dominance in the market. You heard that word monopoly in the quotes from people in Toronto. And that's what's at the heart of this. It's not whether they have a monopoly, right? It's whether they abuse that position of dominance.

So one of the things we're going to hear a lot about as the case goes forward and here in Canada, too, is what is the marketplace, what is the relevant marketplace, and who are those firms that are able to try to compete with Ticketmaster Live Nation? Yesterday, there was testimony from the former CEO of the Berkeley Center in New York who said that that organization had dumped Ticketmaster for a rival ticket seller. And he said he got an angry call, an expert of laden phone call from the CEO of Live Nation saying that, it's, well, maybe we will put our concerts in your venue. He interpreted that, as he sees as, he says, a veiled threat or maybe not so veiled of a threat. What sort of evidence is the government presenting that Live Nation is actually a monopoly? I mean, that would suggest that there are people who are willing to speak up. Exactly, willing to speak up. I mean, you mentioned the Taylor Swift ticket crashes. And actually, some people have also pointed to the fact that they have such a dominant market position, that they don't even have the incentive to invest in improving their technology. Right? So there's also an element related to these potential radius clauses that would be deep in agreements that Ticketmaster Live Nation strikes with artists as well to say, okay, say if you play here in Toronto at the Rogers Center, which exclusively works with Live Nation Ticketmaster, you actually can't play a certain geography all around that. They kind of ice you out. So that's another way. Again, they're imposing the terms of competition in the marketplace. It's not a free and open marketplace where artists can choose more often where they're able to play.

But also, we've seen artists in the past speak up and say, we don't even want to work with that software system, right? But they're unable to because they'll be locked out, as you said, of the venue. So it's really looking at this duality across physical infrastructure, either that they own or that they have exclusive arrangements with and the software for ticketing and then the promotional layer on top of it all. For a lot of people, this is about getting those tickets, but it's also about how much the tickets cost. Yes. I am of a vintage in which you could go and see enormous bans for $15, $20.

How much do tickets cost now in the era of Ticketmaster? Tickets, it's a bit of a wild west when it comes to pricing, right? Ticketmaster also has an exclusive secondary resale market. And that aspect isn't really at the heart of the case, but I think it's at the heart of people starting to resent the company and sort of feeling in their guts that something's not working here or something's not right. You know, competition law, competition policy, I'm into it, but it's kind of boring and like hard to read and esoteric, let's be real. But when you ask, again, the average person, does this work? Does this behavior? You know, should this company be able to essentially determine where and when artists can play?

I think you get a pretty clear answer and that answer is no. But paying $400, $800 or tickets is not uncommon. I mean, then that can be a floor, not a ceiling right now. Absolutely. I mean, look, we're also partially that could be a product of their market dominance and their ability to set the terms of that marketplace. We've also entered this era where we've commodified culture so much, right? Where there is a digital secondary market for these experiences.

I do think a lot about that and sort of worry about it in the sense that I don't think cultural experiences should consistently go to the highest bidder. And most people can't afford that. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, later in the show, you're talking about maintaining friend groups and those experiences. And, you know, going out less often to enjoy a sports game. It's not just music, right, that Ticketmaster Live Nation, you know, a sporting event or a, uh, a, concert that is sort of your whole budget for the year or the season all in one.

That aspect is ridiculous, too. So what happens if this case in the United States is successful? What happens to Live Nation? Does it get broken up? Does it get blown apart? Does it have to charge less for things? This is what they're hoping for in the case, right? The formal competition word is divestiture.

But the argument, again, goes to that at the heart of this problem is the vertical integration, right, across, again, physical and digital elements of the business. So the U.S. is hoping that Live Nation will spin out from Ticketmaster. However, companies also break themselves up all the time. It could be that there's so much pressure, not just from fans, but from regulators, and also artists themselves, right? For artists to have that kind of their own market power and their own voice, we've seen not just since Pearl Jam in 1994, but all sorts of artists who have attempted to turn away from Ticketmaster and had the quality and even their ability to tour compromised as a result.

What about here in Canada? What do we know, and I mentioned the Consumers Council of Canada, is looking at trying to figure out how to take on Ticketmaster and Live Nation as well. What does the case in the United States mean for us here? I think it's very smart that we're seeing an echo of that case here. Sometimes I sort of feel like, you know, look, no one else is going to do our homework for us. Just say divestiture does occur in the U.S., it doesn't necessarily mean that it would spill over here to Canada, though it would make it difficult for artists who might see an international tour. It's all one tour, right?

They're not necessarily piecing it out in terms of geography. I think it's smart for us to echo the case, piggyback off some of the evidence that we're going to hear that can be brought forward. And it's very unique in that it's one of the early tests of these new what's referred to as private action rights, right? This isn't the Competition Bureau bringing a case forward to the competition tribunal. This is, as you said, a consumer protection group that's asking the tribunal to hear a similar case. In the face of all of this, Live Nation has said, we're not a monopoly, that we have more competition now than ever before, that our market share has actually gone down. Case closed. And that if you are successful in the United States, this isn't actually going to make events cheaper.

What do we do about this? What do we do about – because ultimately this is about a cost of living issue in many ways for people. Okay. So again, if we want to look at – if we want to come at the issue from ticket pricing, there are market interventions in other jurisdictions we could be learning about. So the UK recently passed a law that says you cannot – you can resell. tickets, but you can't increase the price. A few other jurisdictions have this, and this can be governed or moderated by digital technology, like what Ticketmaster has. And I think that gets at some of the challenges of the resale market and bots sort of purchasing tickets right away.

But Couchton that is a, you know, a bigger conversation about accessibility. It strikes me that I think it's kind of interesting that more kind of traditional or old school cultural events, opera, the theater, the ballet. They still, they may use digital ticketing systems, but they're still very transparent and flat fee. You know that you're paying the same amount as the people in your area, and it's kind of transparent, and it hasn't gotten, the escalation hasn't been as extreme. So what can we learn from that? Ticketmaster will tell you that something like Taylor Swift is a pure supply and demand problem. You know, just didn't really have the venues or the capacity and that they more closely mirror what

feels like a more free market where, again, the price goes up based on the demand. So it may be that for very exclusive or highly desirable events, we I think historically have understood that prices would be a little bit higher. But man, even Kat Stevens was here last year playing Massey, all right, and with his memoir. And the tickets everywhere were over 1,000. for one ticket. Come on. Come on, Kat. As we heard at the beginning, people aren't happy, even with Kat Stevens. Fass, thank you very much. Thank you.

Fass Bednar is managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute and the author of The Big Fix, how companies capture markets and harm Canadians. Floor crossers, separatist movements, Trump's tariff threats, struggling to keep up. Power and politics has you covered with our weekly wrap. Every Saturday, we bring together our tuned-in political strategists. get caught up on the week that was and what it means for what's next by following power and politics wherever you get your podcasts. Dean Budnick is editor of Relics, a magazine covering live music, co-author of Ticket Masters, the rise of the concert industry and how the public got scalped. Dean, good morning to you.

Morning, ma. The Department of Justice's lawyer opened up this case by saying the concert ticket industry is broken. In fact, the concert industry itself is broken. Is he right? I think to a large degree that is the case, particularly if you look at it from the fan perspective, given where service fees are, given the expense of tickets to the average fan,

frankly, given the relationship between Live Nation and Ticketmaster, something does seem to be running afoul of the experience for the average concert gore. Why are tickets so expensive? Well, there are a lot of, elements to that. But it actually is really important for people to recognize that at the heart of that, and Live Nation says this, and they're not entirely wrong, ticket prices are established by the artist. The artists secure a guarantee from the venue or promoter for a given show, and that directly translates into what the face value is of a ticket. Now, the service fees that come with that, that's something. different. I mean, that's a product of what's happening in the industry and the relationship between Ticketmaster and its exclusive contracts with venues. But at the core of this, truly, it's artists scrambling in a post-COVID world in an era in which recorded music sales

have deteriorated over the course of the past few decades. And they're scrambling to, you know, to do what they can to keep making music and sharing it with the world. It's interesting because the CEO of Live Nation, Michael Rapino, who's Canadian, has said that he believes that concert tickets in some ways are underpriced. He also said that he wakes up every morning and logs onto social media to see who hates him. You could imagine that a comment like that would lead to a lot of anger. But is he right? Well, are concert tickets underpriced? I would say you ask the average consumer, they would say no.

Here, by the way, you know, you were talking about this. earlier, in the United States, the average price of a concert ticket to the most popular tours last year was $135. Although, you know, you're talking about venues, you know, sometimes stadiums, 65,000. You're talking about, you know, smaller, you know, arenas, 15 to 20. So obviously that scales. There are plenty that are cheap, less expensive, that are plenty that are more expensive. But what Rapino is saying is that then when you see those tickets on sale on secondary markets like Stubhub or like Ticketmaster's own secondary market, that those tickets are selling for more than the initial on sale price.

And as a result, people are willing to pay more. But you also have artists who have used dynamic ticket pricing, Bruce Springsteen, Oasis, and others where the demand was greater than the price of the tickets went up, but then there was public outrage and so they reversed course. Why do fans blame Ticketmaster if artists, you're suggesting perhaps have some say in this as well? Well, first of all, right? So the artists are able to make the decision

as to whether or not they want to enable dynamic pricing. And dynamic pricing, right? In theory, tries to echo what the values will be of those tickets on the secondary market so that those proceeds go to the artists and don't go to somebody, you know, just sitting in his underwear on the other side of the country. continent, buying tickets to a show so that he can flip it an hour later for five times

what he paid. But, you know, I'm not, it's not that I'm blaming artists, but I just want people to understand that truly at the heart of it, at least at the outset, you know, I mean, Live Nation's willing to pay those sums. And Live Nation, because they're paying those sums, they're having to find ways to make things work economically. So everything else in that experience when it comes to concessions or when it comes to fees or when it comes to if you want to buy merch the additional amount of money that they're

putting on top of that, the additional proceeds that they're receiving, all of that becomes rather uncomfortable for the concert goer. So again, I don't want to, I don't want to blame the artists. We love the artists. That's why we go to the shows. But realistically, in terms of what the face value is, I think we have to be realistic and just acknowledge that the artists ultimately, you know, the responsibility there lies with them. Pearl Jam, famously told took on Ticketmaster in the 90s and failed in that effort to try to work around Ticketmaster. What lessons do you think artists took from that? I think that, but the one thing I would say about that, though, right?

So in 1995, Pearl Jam goes out on tour, and I think this is relevant for the, you know, for what's happening right now in the trial. Because Ticketmaster had exclusive contracts with Sony venues, Pearl Jam couldn't find alternative. venues with proper infrastructure in which they were going to hold their own shows. As a result of that, that tour collapsed. They only played a few of those dates. And eventually, I think some people would say they capitulated and began to work with Ticketmaster once again. I think that artists can see there's a lot of effort that would be required in order to circumvent Ticketmaster because Ticketmaster does establish these exclusive contracts with the venues that say if someone's going to perform here in this particular venue, Ticketmaster has to be the ticketing company that services the tickets.

What is at stake here just finally? We just have a couple of minutes left. What do you think is really at stake here? Because going to see live music is this amazing collective experience. You are there with other people at a time when people spend a lot of time just looking at their phones and being by themselves. You're there with thousands of other people and you're having this thing. But if people are priced out of that or they feel that the machine is working against them, what do you think is at stake here?

Yeah, I mean, listen, certainly we could see post-COVID how excited people were to go out and commune with one another and their favorite artists. We had in North America the largest concert attendance in the history that, you know, in the history that it's been recorded. And there's something to be said for that. And that's really important. Above and beyond individuals not being able to participate in that, I worry about the ecosystem as a whole. If individuals are giving up, you know, are paying $500, $750 for a ticket, you know, that blows their budget.

They don't have the opportunity, then, to support emerging artists when people are trying to come up so we can have the next generation of arena stars, of stadium artists. The whole system gets thrown out of whack as a result of what's happening now relative to frustration over ticket prices. I have to let you go, but do you think that there is the glimmer of that changing, the possibility of it changing? Listen, I think here the government is going to be able to prove that Ticketmaster controls 86% of the major concert venues, 80% of the amphitheaters, which are sort of the two big legs of the case. I think people think that feels like something is wrong. So I suspect that the government will prevail in the case, and then we'll start to get some kind of mediation that'll feel better to folks. We shall see. Dean, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Matt. Dean Budnick is editor of Relics Magazine, co-author of Ticketmasters, The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped. He was in East Greenwich Road Island. Your thoughts on this and the high cost of going to see your favorite musicians. Does it drive you around the bend? What do you sacrifice to do that? And do you think you're being taken? You can email us, the current, at cbc.ca. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.