Ticketing industry is a duopoly or an oligopoly
Live Nation/Ticketmaster has been servicing fans and scalpers/toutsāthereās money to be made if you sell one ticket twice, amirite? One of its main rivals is AXS.
Because shareholder value.
And ticket prices for our favourite shows and festivals have been going up.
And just like that, LiveNation has a market cap of $15 billion, as the music industry is āsufferingā because of the internetā¦ actually, it isnāt, as the revenues are up and up and up, according to the data.
Some people had enough though
LiveNation is under investigation, by the way:
Although the agreement is nearly a decade old ā and is due to expire next July ā itās been back in the spotlight over the last year. Partly because of a big New York Times article about allegations of anti-competitive behaviour that have been made against the live giant. And partly because of debates in Washington over the US ticketing market.
Allegations of anti-competitive behaviour were at heart of the original lawsuit filed against Live Nation by ticketing start-up Songkick. Had it got to court, a long line of complaints about the conduct of Live Nation ā from competitors large and small ā would likely have been aired. However, in January Live Nation settled with Songkick while buying up a bunch of the start-upās ticketing platform assets (the better known gig recommendations side of that business having already been sold to Warner Music).
That hasnāt stopped Live Nationās critics from chattering about the company allegedly abusing its market dominance. Especially in the US, where Ticketmaster is particularly dominant and exclusivity deals are common in the ticketing business. Among those critics is Live Nationās biggest rival AEG, which has invested in its own ticketing platform called AXS since Ticketmaster merged with its main competitor.