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Buying tickets to any event has become a bloodbath over the last few years. Fans trying to get tickets to see their favorite artists are forced to play a rigged lottery where more bots are chosen to get presale codes over real fans. Time and time again, this cycle repeats leaving real fans stuck with no tickets or forced to buy up-charged resale tickets. In 2010 the U.S. Department of Justice approved the Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger which forever affected how concert tickets are purchased. The issue of Ticketmaster’s monopoly in the concert and live music industry has resurfaced with presales for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour and Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS world tour. 

In 2022 Taylor Swift announced The Eras Tour and fans were asked to sign up for presale codes to get tickets. When the day of the sale came, fans quickly realized that many of the people who received presale codes were bot accounts or resellers. Less than 4 hours after the sale tickets in every section for all dates were available on resale sites such as StubHub and SeatGeek. As someone who went to two nights of The Eras Tour at Metlife stadium, getting tickets was an insane process that I hope would never go through again. Even a year later in 2023 when presale codes and tickets went out for Olivia Rodrigo’s, GUTS world tour, the pattern repeated with real fans left without tickets. 

The Ticketmaster monopoly is not limited to these tours and extends further into the live music and event industry. According to an article by CNBC, after merging Ticketmaster and Live Nation now control an estimated 70% of the ticketing and live event venues market. This forces fans and artists to use Ticketmaster and Live Nation for events, giving the company an unethical amount of power where they are the monopoly in the live music and event industry. Additionally, fees charged by Ticketmaster have skyrocketed doubling ticket prices at times. An article from the American Antitrust Institute states that these fees harm artists, teams, venues, and fans. Venues that choose to pass on the monopoly service fees are forced to have inflated ticket prices to include service fees in the original ticket price.

These claims against Ticketmaster and Live Nation contribute to the leading question, why are there no laws to protect consumers and artists against this? The Antitrust Laws and The Sherman Antitrust Act prove that the Ticketmaster monopoly could be illegal. As specified by the Antitrust Division, the Antitrust laws prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition. Ticketmaster and Live Nation currently monopolize the live music industry leaving little to no room for competitors. Furthermore, The Sherman Act makes it illegal to monopolize, conspire to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize a market for products or services. Live Nation does not adhere to the Sherman Act as they own 70% of the live music industry and monopolize the service and market of a ticket-selling platform.