The Year In Ticketing: Live’s Toughest Task Faces Uncertainty After A Wild 2024

Ticketing — which almost no one actually understands and even fewer want to talk about — has long been the elephant in the live industry room.

Everyone has to deal with the elephant. Everyone agrees the elephant could be handled better, though many of the solutions are contradictory. Very few people enjoy dealing with the elephant but eventually everyone must. Meanwhile, let’s not talk about the elephant until it’s unavoidable.

Before this metaphor collapses under its own pachydermian weight, let’s acknowledge that the elephant is the center of gravity in what was the biggest off-stage story of the year.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice — joined by a majority of state attorneys-general — filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, seeking to reverse the industry-altering 2010 merger that combined Live Nation and Ticketmaster. 

The lawsuit alleges that Live Nation’s flywheel strategy stifles competition to the detriment of the consumer.

“Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s self-reinforcing business model … captures fees and revenue from concert fans and sponsorship, uses that revenue to lock up artists to exclusive promotion deals, and then uses its powerful cache of live content to sign venues into long term exclusive ticketing deals, thereby starting the cycle all over again,” the DOJ said in a press release.

LN pushed back, saying Ticketmaster is the market-dominant force in ticketing because it’s a better product and the bigger–is-always-badder legal theory that the Biden Administration has used in its antitrust actions isn’t a sound interpretation of the law.

The case — which has broad bipartisan support — is scheduled for trial in March 2026.

Ticketing has been a hot topic on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue for years, particularly since the shambolic onsale for Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” in November 2022. 

Punching back against Ticketmaster is one of the rare bipartisan sports, though it’s usually more rhetoric than action. 

The U.S. House of Representatives in May passed the TICKET Act, the most comprehensive ticketing reform in decades. The bill mandates all-in pricing and requires secondary sellers to disclose that fact and bars secondary sellers from implying they are affiliated with a venue, team or artist. Further, secondary sites are prevented from using the name of artists, venues or teams in a deceptive way. Secondary sellers are also required to make their refund policies clear. The reforms would also require primary sellers to provide refunds for canceled events or to provide replacement tickets. It would also ban speculative ticketing. 

The more comprehensive and toothy Fans First Act is still awaiting action. 

At the state level, Maryland passed a similar bill, though a provision that capped resale prices was removed during the legislative process.

Meanwhile, independent ticketers faced headwinds. Lyte’s September bankruptcy led to lawsuits alleging financial malfeasance. That followed DICE’s attempt sell a “major stake” in June and Eventim’s acquisition of See Tickets from Vivendi in April.

That shake-up crystallized a major challenge in ticketing, particularly for indies: venues and artists expect upfront money from the ticketer in exchange for the exclusivity; the ticketer then seeks to recoup the advance and turn a profit. That’s a tremendous amount of risk and one that requires liquidity. For a major player — Ticketmaster and AEG’s AXS — it’s lines on a spreadsheet; for an indie, it can be the difference in making payroll next week.

“Ticketing is, first of all, very difficult,” an anonymous exec told Pollstar in October in a massive understatement.

And it’s also very lucrative: through the first nine months of 2024, Live Nation reported its ticketing sector generated more than $2.1 billion in revenues and profits north of $812 million. And those figures were down slightly from the year before.

That elephant still carries the money bags.