In December of 2008, Live Nation started selling concert tickets and for the first time in literally 20 years, fans were treated to a viable competitor to Ticketmaster, which sold over 140 million tickets that year. In a surprising turn of events, two months later, the two music industry behemoths announced plans for a merger. Predictably, immediate protests from consumer groups and competitors seemingly nixed the deal — until yesterday.
On Monday, January 25, the Department of Justice approved plans for Ticketmaster and Live Nation to come together in a historic union that will undoubtedly change the music industry landscape for years to come. To score this sweet deal, Ticketmaster and Live Nation had to agree to a couple of conditions. First, Ticketmaster has to share technology with potential competitor AEG (thereby enabling AEG to provide ticketing services), and to sell off a subsidiary that provides software to venues that sell their own tickets. Both of these measures are designed to ensure that the newly formed Live Nation Entertainment does not unrelentingly dominate the music industry.
Consumer groups, fans, and competitors remain skeptical that the deal will end up being beneficial to anyone other than Live Nation Entertainment, and I tend to agree. Both Ticketmaster and Live Nation have a history of trying to elbow out the competition, and it seems unlikely that getting even bigger and having even more market share will change that.
With this merger, Live Nation Entertainment will have large stakes in virtually every segment of the music industry. Between ticket sales, merchandise sales, concert booking, and artist management, what’s left for the competition? Granted, neither company individually has a monopoly on any of those segments, but it’s easy to envision a sort of Walmart of the music industry, where artists, fans, and promoters turn to Live Nation Entertainment as the ultimate paragon of one-stop shopping.
Or maybe not. Maybe it will all be just fine, and a year from now we’ll all be swimming in cheap concert tickets and merchandise, artists will be flush with more unfettered creativity than ever before, and concert venues will start selling cheap beer. Of course, by the time we know for sure, this will all be history.