Senators blame Ticketmaster ‘monopoly’ for Swift debacle

Senators on Tuesday blamed Live Nation Entertainment’s market dominance for soaring ticket prices and a terrible customer experience — complaints illustrated by the company’s Ticketmaster unit bungling the massive demand for Taylor Swift tickets last year.

Live Nation’s conduct made it “the definition of monopoly,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel said. “Restoring competition to our markets is about making sure that fans get fair prices and better service.”

The Judiciary Committee hearing on competition in the live entertainment industry comes as the Justice Department is probing Live Nation and Ticketmaster over antitrust concerns, even as the company remains subject to court-ordered monitoring in the wake of previous complaints. Tuesday’s session also responds to the angriest of demographics — Swift fans who were unable to get tickets after Ticketmaster’s site crashed in November and it was forced to cancel public sales.

Live Nation president and chief financial officer Joe Berchtold said “industrial-scale ticket scalping” fueled by automated “bots” is the real problem, with a $5 billion market in secondary sales standing between artists and fans. Berchtold told the committee that U.S. ticketing markets “have never been more competitive” and Congress should focus on strengthening rules to protect consumers and regulate automated ticketing.

Much of the hearing focused on Live Nation’s control of concert venues and the structure of ticket prices and service fees. This set up some interesting exchanges between Live Nation’s Berchtold and the hearing’s other witnesses, including singer-songwriter Clyde Lawrence.

Lawrence said artists must share their merchandise profit with Live Nation, but they don’t receive any part of the food and drink concessions from their shows. And he said artists have “no say or choice or visibility in what our fans experience when buying our tickets.”