Live Nation and Ticketmaster File Motion To Delay Antitrust Trial

Live Nation and subsidiary Ticketmaster have found themselves in hot water since 2024, with the ticket sales and distribution company facing an antitrust suit over pricing discrimination. The justice department claims that Live Nation (and its subsidiary Ticket Master) allegedly “has leveraged its dominance in a way that undermined competition for ticketing live events.” Both sides were relatively silent on the matter when rumors of the suit started to spread two years ago, but now Variety is reporting that Live Nation has requested that the trial, originally set to start next Monday, be postponed. 

Ticketmaster and its now parent company Live Nation merged back in 2010, but the consolidation faced opposition from the start. The federal government nearly stopped the sale completely due to the very concerns that have been highlighted in the current antitrust suit, but it was ultimately allowed to go through after review.

Now, Live Nation wants the proceedings to be postponed so that an appeals court can review two questions from the company’s legal team. It’s their opinion that these two questions (of which are currently unknown) could “dramatically change” and “substantially narrow” the trial. The mega corporation also claims that they want to avoid a months-long trial that “may well prove wholly unnecessary.”

Fans and concertgoers have regularly taken to social media in frustration over Live Nation and Ticketmasters fees over the last decade plus, but some experts argue that the government’s antitrust lawsuit will do nothing to lower ticket prices. Even though the suit alleges that Live Nation’s “anticompetitive behavior that hurts artists and fans,” Larry Miller, professor and director of Music Business at NYU notes that “fans love to hate Ticketmaster, but their anger is misplaced. Artists and their teams set ticket prices and venues set fees – not Ticketmaster. The company, to its credit, has for decades quietly absorbed the ire of fans while implementing artists’ and venues’ pricing strategy at scale and speed. It receives an estimated 5 – 7% of the ticket price for its services.”

Jury selection for the lawsuit is expected to move forward on March 2.