Live Nation Rips Feds’ Case In Dismissal Motion

In a scathing, 51-page filing, Live Nation moved for the summary judgment and dismissal of its federal antitrust case.

In the 18 months since the Department of Justice filed the lawsuit, which seeks to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the company has filed numerous motions seeking to have parts of the case dismissed and to limit the government’s theory of the case. Now, with trial looming in March 2026, it’s asking for its wholesale dismissal.

“Plaintiffs opened this case alleging that Live Nation had multiple, self-reinforcing monopolies and had—for fifteen years—engaged in ‘systematic’ and ‘intentional’ corruption of
competition across ‘virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem,'” the filing begins. “Strong words. If there was a lick of truth to them, one would expect Plaintiffs
to now have mountains of evidence demonstrating monopoly power and the anticompetitive effects of Live Nation’s conduct. And yet, after an 18-month investigation and a year of discovery, Plaintiffs have barely a molehill.”

The motion says the DOJ “gerrymandered in obvious and legally indefensible ways” the definition of the markets which Live Nation and Ticketmaster are accused of monopolizing. For example, the feds allege the companies control 86% of the primary venues and promotion services for major concerts, but LN’s lawyers say that’s only based on an arbitrary definition of major concerts, venues and artists. Specifically, that definiton excluded stadiums. If stadiums were includes, Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s market share dips to 49%.

Live Nation further contends that the government’s evidence doesn’t actually demonstrate harm to consumers. One of the government’s keystone allegations is that Live Nation threatens to divert tours from venues that don’t contract with Ticketmaster.

“Viewing the record generously for Plaintiffs, at most three venue witnesses support this claim—one in the last five years. To put that in context, Ticketmaster has negotiated thousands of ticketing contracts with major concert venues over the course of the relevant time period. Three out of thousands could not possibly prove the market-wide anticompetitive effects required for a monopolization claim,” the filing says,.

Instead, the filing contends, the government relies on hearsay evidence — which would not be admissable to prove truth at trial — from other ticketing companies.

Live Nation — as it has throughout the the pre-trial period — pushed back against the amphitheater-tying claims made by the feds, which allege that artists are forced to use Live Nation promotion as a condition of playing a Live Nation-owned amp. There is a legal dispute about who the consumer is in this transaction — LN contends that promoters who rent the venue would be the consumer and because “refusal to deal” is a protected business practice, no tying claim can be made; the feds argue that the artist is the consumer and Judge Arun Subramanian said the matter is one of fact and thus triable — but LN says even if the artist is the consumer, the DOJ’s evidence of tying is based on the testimony of just one artist. That artist and their testimony is largely redacted in the public-facing version of the motion.

Subramanian’s decision on dismissal will come after the DOJ — and presumably the state plaintiffs — filed a response in the next few weeks.