Ticketmaster has a total stranglehold on the live event industry. Here's how some states are trying to break that.

• A California legislator is trying to strike back at Live Nation Entertainment's grip on the live events space.
• California Sen. Scott Wilk introduced a bill in February forbidding ticketing services from entering into exclusivity contracts with venues.
• It easily passed through the California State Senate and is awaiting action in the state House.

A frustrating ticket-buying experience by the niece of California state Sen. Scott Wilk has led to the introduction of a new bill rushing through the California legislature.

And no, it wasn't Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" that inspired it. 

It was actually the ticket-buying experience for a minor-league hockey game that could lead to a large legislative setback for Live Nation Entertainment.

"She was shocked to see that the extra fees tacked on at the end amounted to original price of the tickets in the first place," Wilk told Insider.

California's Senate Bill 829, which Wilk introduced in February 2023, bans entertainment facilities (like arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums) from entering into exclusivity contracts with ticketing companies. 

While Wilk's bill wouldn't abolish extra fees or completely break up the stranglehold that Live Nation Entertainment has on the live events industry, it targets a specific practice of the company: coercing venues into signing long-lasting exclusive agreements of up to ten years.

"Prohibiting exclusive contracts for primary ticket sellers, like Ticketmaster, would open the door to more competition within the ticket-selling industry, leading to innovation and hopefully lower ticket prices and a more pleasant ticket-buying experience," Wilk told Insider.

Wilk's bill easily passed through the California Senate in May and is currently sitting in the state assembly awaiting action. 

"The saying here is, 'So goes California, so goes the nation,'" Wilk said. "So if we can make this happen here, I believe the rest of the dominoes will being to fall across the country."

He might be on to something — Pat Garafolo, the director of state and local policy at the American Economic Liberties Project and who helped draft Wilk's bill, said he's spoken with legislators in other states about possibly introducing similar legislation. 

The extent of Live Nation Entertainment's grasp

In June, the American Economic Liberties Project released a report detailing the extent of the stranglehold Live Nation Entertainment has on the live events industry.

The report, made using proprietary data collected by senior policy analyst Krista Brown, found that 78% of the highest-grossing arenas in the United States use ticketing services provided by Ticketmaster.

In addition to arenas, the report documented that Live Nation Entertainment is connected to the majority of the highest-grossing amphitheaters in the country, with 64% of them operate using Ticketmaster's services.

Brown explained to Insider that Live Nation Entertainment has been able to become so powerful in the industry as it's vertically integrated very effectively.

As she explained, Live Nation Entertainment is a combination of a ticketing service, a concert promoter, and an artist management company. 

According to one lawsuit in California, Live Nation Entertainment has been able to maintain its grip on the live events space by engaging in unfair business practices utilizing the companies' various branches.

"Using its promotion business as a loss leader in turn helps maintain Ticketmaster's dominance, because venue operators must take into account the very real possibility that Live Nation Entertainment will not route tours through their venues if they do not select Ticketmaster as their primary ticketing service provider," the lawsuit reads.

In a separate court filing in a case regarding Live Nation Entertainment and the DOJ's "consent decree," the Department of Justice made a similar argument.

"Venues throughout the United States have come to expect that refusing to contract with Ticketmaster will result in the venue receiving fewer Live Nation concerts or none at all," the DOJ wrote. "Given the paramount importance of live event revenues to a venue's bottom line, this is a loss that most venues can ill-afford to risk. As a result, many venues are effectively required to contract with Ticketmaster to obtain Live Nation concerts on reasonable terms, limiting the ability of Ticketmaster's competitors to compete in the primary ticketing market and harming venues that would benefit from increased competition."

Live Nation Entertainment is under federal pressure

The federal government is also cracking down on Ticketmaster's reign in the entertainment industry. 

In mid-June, President Joe Biden hosted ticketing companies from around the country to rein in so-called "junk fees," an item that has been on his presidential agenda since his February State of the Union address.

That same day, Live Nation Entertainment announced a new "transparent" pricing system where instead of introducing a host of fees at the end of the transaction, it said it would introduce them at the beginning.

And just as the executive branch is putting pressure on Live Nation Entertainment to change its practices, so are the judicial and legislative branches.

In the Senate, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal together introduced the "Unlock Ticketing Markets Act," a bill that would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to enforce a 4-year limit on exclusivity contracts within the ticketing industry.

The bill was introduced several months after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Klobuchar singled out Live Nation Entertainment for its practices, which she described as monopolistic. 

"Monopolies and anticompetitive behavior hurt consumers, venues, and artists alike, and as the DOJ weighs what enforcement steps it can take, Congress must also act to implement reforms," Klobuchar said to Insider. "Right now, one company is leveraging its power to lock venues into exclusive contracts that last up to ten years. It's driving up costs and stifling competition, which is why I introduced a bill to prohibit the use of excessively long, exclusive contracts that lock out competition, decrease incentives to improve service, and create higher costs for fans."

In a statement introducing their legislation, Blumenthal echoed the senator from Minnesota.

"Consumers deserve protection against the clear excesses and abuses of Ticketmaster repeatedly demonstrated in their own lives and documented in Congressional hearings," Blumenthal said. 

And lastly, in the judicial branch, the New York Times reported in November 2022 that the Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation Entertainment.