Live Nation, NIVA Give Public Comment On DOJ & FTC Live Industry Study

The public comment period on the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s study of “unfair and anticompetitive practices and conduct in the live concert and entertainment industry” is now closed and, as would be expected for a subject with so many moving parts, the proffered solutions run the gamut.

In President Donald Trump’s March 31 executive order on the live industry, the DOJ and FTC were charged with producing a report that identifies “recommendations for regulations or legislation necessary to protect consumers” in the industry.

Needless to say, Live Nation and the National Independent Venue Association have very different ideas about what those recommendations would be,.

Which isn’t to suggest there aren’t areas of agreement. Both suggest that stringent regulation of the secondary market is necessary and even agree that a national resale cap should be implemented; Live Nation says mark-up shouldn’t exceed 20% than face value.

“On average, the price of concert tickets doubles on resale markets. This wouldn’t be a $15 billion industry if scalpers bought high and sold low. Maybe caps would lead to eforts to evade the regulation; that certainly sounds like something a scalper would do,” Live Nation’s comment reads. “But we will take that over the open and notorious ticket scalping that we have now, which rips off artists and fans for billions of dollars every year.”

Both NIVA and LN also call for more rigorous enforcement of the BOTS Act, a ban on speculative and other actions that most actors within the industry broadly agree on.

One of NIVA’s proposals, however, is unlikely to find much support from Live Nation.,

“The U.S. Department of Justice should seek to require the separation of Live Nation into four distinct entities: ticketing, promotion, advertising/sponsorship, and artist management. The conflicts of interest inherent in one company operating across all of these roles are too great and too systemic to be addressed through regulatory conditions alone. True remedy requires structural divestment to dismantle the flywheel and ensure no single entity controls the entire live event pipeline,” NIVA says.

That proposal goes even farther than the remedy suggested by the DOJ’s antitrust division in its ongoing action against Live Nation, which seeks to spin off Ticketmaster. NIVA suggests the creation of a fund of “$300-$500 million annually for at least 15 years” to aid independent venues and to be funded through a settlement contribution, disgorgement and “performance-based revenue shares to be paid by the post-break up promotions and ticketing entities formerly known as Live Nation.”

Nearly 4,300 comments were filed during the public comment period.