Ticketmaster and Live Nation dominate the live entertainment industry and any further integration will allow the new company unprecedented control over pricing and access, thereby relinquishing consumer purchasing power.

Ticketmaster currently owns an artist-management business, Front Line Management Group, which contracts with roughly 200 artists. Live Nation owns or has exclusive deals with 139 venues, but it also manages about 150 artists. This merger would allow the merged entity to determine the prices of access to venues, concert promotion, ticketing, and other services – permitting a single firm to dominate virtually all aspects of the live event market in most cities across the country.

Ticketmaster uses multiple means to take advantage of consumers and increase the price of tickets and services, a practice that will grow with increased control over the market.

Unfortunately for the fans, as Ticketmaster’s empire grows, so do its fees. As the New Yorker puts it, “Ticketmaster is the empire that service fees built: Over the last five years it has generated more than $5 billion in ‘convenience fees,’ ‘order-processing fees’ and newer schemes like charging fans $2.50 to print their own tickets.” These fees are exorbitant and “often account for more than thirty percent of the cost of a ticket.”

A Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger will guarantee the new company full and exclusive access to competitively sensitive live entertainment information.

The proposed monopoly will also align previously competing interests, thereby allowing them to deliver key competitive information to keep prices (including access to venue, promotions, and ticket sales) at a premium. The merger will enable the merged firm to know the most competitively sensitive information about its rivals, making it more difficult for existing companies to survive and for new companies to enter the market. Eliminating competition will simply allow more room to drive up prices for consumers.

Ticketmaster has a track record of initiating anti-competitive practices to block competitors from accessing their events.

Through the use of paperless ticketing (requiring identification and financial information for entrance to events) and the act of voiding bar codes of previously purchased tickets, Ticketmaster has already inconvenienced fans and attempted to block any ability for them to buy, sell, or otherwise transfer their tickets in an open marketplace and for a competitive price.

Blocking the merger outright is preferable to approving it with conditions.

First, it would keep Ticketmaster’s overwhelmingly dominant position from becoming more so. Second, Live Nation’s capacity as a competitor would be preserved. Third, enhanced competition in the ticketing and concert promotion industry would enhance the range of concert options available to consumers and spur innovation in the live event industry.