Maxwell: Ticketmaster verdict a win for consumers, as Taylor Swift's Orlando concert showed
Last week, a jury in New York delivered a win for consumers that should benefit fans of live music everywhere.
Jurors ruled that Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, have essentially been operating as an illegal monopoly, controlling shows, tacking on fees and driving up ticket prices.
This reckoning has been a long time coming.
I've followed the issue for nearly 15 years. In fact, a column I wrote back in 2013 was entered into the Congressional Record after I was able to show just how badly the ticket-buying public was treated in Orlando.
That piece focused on a Taylor Swift show here where, it turned out, the general public had hardly any shot at getting the tickets. Thanks to a system that primarily benefited insiders and scalpers, only 15% of the tickets were left by the time they went on general sale.
Yes, it stunk for Swifties. But the reason I cared most was because taxpayers built and own the venue where the public was being largely shut out.
For more than a decade, journalists and consumer-rights groups fought to expose this rigged system. But politicians on both sides of the aisle didn’t unite to take action until after the infamous Ticketmaster meltdown at the launch of Swift's "Eras" tour when fans were left waiting in endless online queues.
In 2024, attorneys general from both red and blue states teamed up with Joe Biden's Justice Department to accuse Live Nation of being a "monopolist … gatekeeper" that controlled tickets, tacked on bogus fees and forced venues like Orlando's Kia Center to let only Ticketmaster to handle its ticket sales.
The prosecutors were able to expose Live Nation using its employees' own words. They revealed internal messages from one executive who mocked ticket-buyers, calling them "so stupid" and saying the company was "robbing them blind, baby."
It looked like the feds and states had the company on the ropes. But then something strange happened a week into the trial. The U.S. Department of Justice - now controlled by Donald Trump and, at the time, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi - decided to drop out of the case and agree to a settlement that state prosecutors described as a sweetheart deal for Live Nation. Multiple reports showed that lobbyists connected to Trump had lobbied the White House on Live Nation's behalf.
Still, most of the 30-plus states persisted, led in part by the attorney general in New York where the federal trial was held.
Florida was also a part of the prosecutorial push. Former A.G. Ashley Moody decided to join the lawsuit in 2024 - though her unelected replacement, James Uthmeier, claimed sole credit last week for the victory in the case that started long before Gov. Ron DeSantis even put him in office.
Uthmeier issued a press release Thursday that didn't mention Moody or the other state’s A.G.'s who actually led the legal charge. Instead he went with this all-caps headline: "ATTORNEY GENERAL JAMES UTHMEIER SECURES VICTORY FOR FLORIDIANS AGAINST LIVE NATION-TICKETMASTER MONOPOLY."
Live Nation remains defiant, issuing a statement that said: "The jury's verdict is not the last word on this matter."
The world of ticket-selling is complicated. But basically, long before you ever get a chance to buy a ticket, a lot of others get in on the action.
Venue owners like the city of Orlando get paid to grant the exclusive rights to sell tickets to Ticketmaster, which can then tack on fees that add as much as 80% to the price.
There's also the sketchy way tickets are distributed. When I got hold of the distribution breakdown for Swift's Orlando show in 2013, it showed that, out of 12,118 tickets for sale, only 1,740 were left when the sale opened up to the public.
For Taylor Swift, public had slim shot at tickets
Tickets had been reserved for the promoter, Swift's management company, certain credit-card holders and residents who signed up to be part of the city's arena "insider" group.
The system allowed many of the tickets to be scooped up by online brokers before the general public ever had a shot.
Making things even worse, there were also reports of Live Nation working with some of the artists to cut them in on the scalping action by reserving some tickets specifically for the online brokers, who would then mark up the prices and share the profits with the performers.
It was all unseemly, but even more so considering most of it was taking place in public facilities that taxpayers built.
The cities and counties that owned the venues were admittedly up against a wall, since they didn't have many other options. (Hence, the "monopoly" argument.) But local officials also didn't seem to care one whit.
I genuinely believe part of the reason for that is that the politicians who use tax dollars to build these venues don’t have any problems getting tickets themselves, because theirs are usually free. The contracts that the city and county signed to build the arena actually guarantee comped seats for each side.
Sky-high ticket costs are a problem for the little people.
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There's still a lot to be ironed out in this case. As North Carolina's attorney general, Jeff Jackson, explained: "The case now moves to a second phase where the judge will determine the specific remedies needed to dismantle Ticketmaster's grip on the industry."
The Onion satire site also floated this possibility: "Live Nation CEO Sentenced To 10 Years In Online Queue."
In reality, most onlookers expect ticket prices to drop and general taxpayers to have a better chance to get inside the venues they paid to erect.
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