Photo Credit: Live Nation (Joe Berchtold)
Despite the U.S. Government’s interest in a potential Live Nation/Ticketmaster break-up, Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold doesn’t seem too worried.
The Justice Department, along with 39 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster for monopolizing live events and other unlawful conduct that thwarts competition in the live event space. Speaking at the Bank of America conference on Wednesday, Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold was nonchalant about the potential outcome of this legal action.
“I expect we’re going to prevail,” Berchtold told attendees. “I don’t expect we’re going to have major changes to how we operate through the process. We have to go through the DOJ, but you know, I can’t ultimately control some of the politics, so we’ll just continue to build each of the businesses to best we can.”
“We’re going through motions back and forth with the DOJ,” Berchtold continues. “I think next year is a period of discovery and depositions, and then the trial would begin in early 2026 if nothing between now and then happens that would let us come to an agreed resolution.”
When asked how important Ticketmaster is to Live Nation’s business model, Berchtold suggests that the ticketing giant is a “nice complement” to Live Nation’s business, but adds that the two companies are run “very separately.”
Berchtold says that Live Nation has not seen any signs that fans are cutting back on buying tickets and there is no shortage of artists who want to tour—especially on a global basis. Despite the scrutiny around high ticket prices for in vogue events like Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ and the recently announced Oasis reunion—it’s business as usual for Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
“We’re very strong supporters of giving artists more control over how their tickets are distributed and ultimately sold,” Berchtold says. “But really underlying all that is better communication, better transparency. How do we let the fan know what to expect, what’s going on?”
”You know, I’d love to make the front row a mile wide and have it cost $39. It’s not reality. So I get that at times, Ticketmaster will inherently bear the criticism when it comes to 10 million people who want to buy a million tickets. 90% of them are going to be inherently unhappy. That is the nature of the industry that we’re in. But we can absolutely do a better job around some of the pieces to set up the expectations in terms of what fans should be seeing.”
It’s worth nothing that Ticketmaster recently rolled out its all-in pricing scheme to showcase the final ticket price up front—but only in jurisdictions where it is required to do so. So just how transparent are we concerned with being, if that isn’t the policy to start with? I suppose the DoJ will answer that question in the coming months.
