05 Feb Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger Spurs Call for Anti-Trust Investigation

Ticketmaster’s attempt to take over the world will not go unimpeded. In this article from CNN, we learn that the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation has prompted calls for an anti-trust investigation. The merger between Ticketmaster and the world’s largest concert promoter would “[lock] up a whole lot of the revenue streams for live music, and that is really the most consistent and profitable part of the music business right now,” says Ray Waddell, Billboard magazine’s concert reporter.

Ticketmaster has also earned the ire of The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, who accused Ticketmaster of “scalping” their own tickets to two of his recent shows at the Izod Center in New Jersey. When fans attempted to purchase tickets to the Springsteen shows online, they encountered error messages that prevented them from buying the tickets. The shows subsequently sold out, but almost immediately according to fans, tickets became available on resaler site TicketsNow, a Ticketmaster subsidiary. This prompted N.J. Congressman Bill Pascrell to demand the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have a look at Ticketmaster’s practices. Now with the news of the merger, Bill Pascrell has written a letter to the House Judiciary committee asking for a probe.

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