Billboard
Regulators in the U.K. and U.S. appear likely to impose conditions on the merger of concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and ticket-selling giant Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. now that British authorities came out against the deal Thursday. The U.K. Competition Commission said that combining Ticketmaster and Live Nation “could severely inhibit the entry of a major new competitor, CTS Eventim, into the U.K. ticketing market.” The British regulators have until Nov. 24 to determine what actions to take. Antitrust experts said the ruling makes it more likely that U.K. and U.S. authorities will coordinate a response. That could mean Ticketmaster and Live Nation will be forced to sell off assets, or forced to sell some concert tickets through a competitor.
Live Nation’s “No Service Fee Wednesday” Puzzles Buyers
Rolling Stone
Live Nation’s No Service Fee Wednesdays promotion has come under fire after buyers discovered that some tickets purchased today would in fact carry some Parking, Facility or Charity fees, CNN reports. Today’s No Fee promotion was supposed to offer lawn seats to every Live Nation tour without extra add-ons; typical fees tack on an average of $13 per ticket. Many shows under the promotion’s umbrella include a $6 parking fee per ticket, a cost that is added to every ticket regardless of the buyer’s plans to drive to the venue. The parking charge puzzled some Live Nation customers today, but Blink-182 fans purchasing tickets to the band’s summer reunion tour faced some seriously confounding options. When Blink-182 announced the trek, the band and Live Nation revealed that lawn tickets would only cost $20. However, when tickets went on sale this past weekend, fans purchasing tix to certain shows encountered an option to buy $20 Lawn tickets or $7.75 Lawn Special tickets — Live Nation did not specify any differences between the options, like whether Lawn Special was obstructed or farther from the stage. As a result, some fans purchased the previously advertised $20 Lawn seats, only to discover that those tickets carried an additional $15 in service fees. In actuality, Lawn and Lawn Special were the same thing, and it was the $7.75 ticket — after service fees — that was the $20 ticket.
LAWMAKERS WANT TICKETMASTER/LIVE NATION PROBE
Billboard.biz
The proposed merger of ticketing giant Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, should be closely scrutinized by the Justice Department, according to the chair of a Senate antitrust subcommittee and 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, said the merger would combine Ticketmaster, the nation’s dominant ticket seller, with Live Nation, which has its own ticketing business. “It is clear that this merger raises serious competitive concerns warranting thorough scrutiny,” wrote Kohl to Christine Varney, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division
LIVE NATION WAIVES SERVICE FEE WEDNESDAY
Seattle Times
Concert promoter Live Nation continues its Wednesday ticket deals this week, dropping the service fees for online ticket sales purchased on July 1 in groups of four or six. Those four-pack and six-pack groupings are also heavily discounted — an average of 40 percent over buying four tickets individually, and an average discount of 54 percent over the purchase of six individual tickets. Service fees typically add $9 to $12 per ticket. Despite this mark-off, Live Nation will still charge a parking fee even if you do not drive to the event and inflate the original ticket price.
LIVE NATION HIRING FOR SUMMER
Seattle Times
Jobs are hard to come by these days, but Live Nation is offering an opportunity to pick up one for the summer. The concert promoter/venue operator has nearly 1,500 seasonal jobs at The Gorge, in Eastern Washington, and Auburn’s White River Amphitheatre. Positions range from stagehands to T-shirt sellers, and pay around $9 to $15 per hour. They have two upcoming job fairs to fill those positions: Thursday, April 23 at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Saturday, May 2 at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, from 4 to 8 p.m.
