Does Ticketmaster have a stranglehold on concert tickets – or is it just ‘bringing joy’?

In a midtown Manhattan courtroom on Monday, US Justice Department lawyers and 40 state and district attorneys were present The jury was warned That the concert industry was being squeezed by the monopolist: Live Nation-Tickemaster. After gaining dominance over tickets and artists’ use of large amphitheaters, David Dahlquist, a senior Justice Department adviser, alleged that Live Nation built a “flywheel” of power that forced venue customers to remain within its ecosystem. She threatened or retaliated against them when they thought about leaving. Even to try to win business, ticketing rivals have to offer “retaliation insurance” to venues concerned about losing Live Nation shows by making the switch, Dahlquist said. “Today, the concert ticket industry is broken,” Dahlquist told the jury in his opening statement. “It is controlled by Live Nation and the company that owns it, Ticketmaster.”

In Live Nation’s telling, the story is more optimistic. David Marriott, senior advisor for Live Nation, said the company aims to spread joy, and in fact, there are more concert venues than ever before. Even the opening slides were lively, illuminated by colorful concert photos and tour posters from popular artists like Bad Bunny and Ariana Grande. “Saying you’re better isn’t a threat!” One memorable slide told the jury, the last word written in red to emphasize the point.

The next six weeks will see a long-awaited court battle over whether Live Nation-Ticketmaster illegally monopolizes the ticket markets at major concert venues and artists’ use of large amphitheaters. A finding of liability by a jury would likely break up the company, though Live Nation contends that should be out of the question based on some claims that were dismissed before trial. A loss for the government would be a blow to its aggressive antitrust efforts in recent years, at a time when A Last shake In the Antitrust Division itself It raised questions about corporate influence.

In court on day one, the government and Live Nation painted competing images of a company that is ubiquitous in the music business. Behind the scenes, they were engaging in aggressive advocacy — before the jury entered the courtroom, Judge Arun Subramanian warned the attorneys that he had detected “manipulation” in their attempts to take each other’s arguments or arguments out of the case.

To win, the Justice Department and the states need to prove that Live Nation-Ticketmaster — which it estimates has an 86% market share in prime tickets to major concert venues, and a 78% market share for artists’ use of large amphitheaters — had monopoly power in the relevant markets, and that it unlawfully used that dominance to harm competition, through conduct that made it difficult for customers to leave for a competitor. One notable example she plans to use to prove this is negotiations with Barclays Centre, which left and then returned to Ticketmaster as a reseller. “When they tried to switch, they were punished,” Dahlquist said.

Ticket manager Taylor Swift’s catastrophic meltdown It is expected to go to trial, which the Justice Department cites as evidence of the monopoly’s lack of investment in its technology. Marriott chalked it up to a cyberattack that the Ticketmaster system could only handle as it ultimately did. While state plaintiffs are seeking damages for what they believe Ticketmaster overcharged customers in what would have been a fair market, Marriott said: “There are no damages here, because we did nothing wrong.”

Marriott tried to humanize the business, introducing the trial team and some of the executives in the courtroom, who stood and smiled at the jury. Although Live Nation and Ticketmaster are companies, they are “made up of men and women who desperately want to do the right thing,” he said. Marriott recalled his own live event experiences ranging from the circus as a child to an “awkward” first date at a Lionel Richie concert. “Live Nation and Ticketmaster are both about bringing happiness to people’s lives and doing it legally,” he said.

Marriott said Ticketmaster only makes a small portion of the money from ticket sales, with a profit rate of just 5 percent. Marriott said the operators of the venues “supposedly being abused” by the company are actually “wealthy people,” referring to a segment of large venues and their owners, such as the Intuit Dome, owned by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Marriott claimed that Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s market share is actually only 40 percent in tickets and 18 percent in venues, when you count things the DOJ excluded, like stadiums and most arenas, which are often used for sporting events and concerts as well. He said it wasn’t retaliation that brought Barclays Center back into the Ticketmaster fold, but rather the fact that “SeatGeek failed to operate.” Marriott acknowledged that the jury might hear about a call with Barclays Center leadership in which Live Nation CEO Michael Rapinoe “lost his cool” and “dropped the F-bomb,” but these were merely signs of frustration about losing the contract, not actual threats. After all, he said, telling a customer that there are consequences for choosing a lower-quality product is just telling it like it is.

That call and other details could emerge as early as Wednesday, when the Justice Department plans to call former Barclays Center CEO John Abbamondi to testify. Soon after, the jury is expected to hear from a top executive at the Minnesota Wild Hockey Club, a venue management company, and the co-founder and CEO of SeatGeek. Over the course of the experience, they’ll also likely hear from Rapino, artists like Kid Rock and Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, and even a couple of music fans. Next, the jury will decide whether the concert industry is truly as fun as Live Nation claims it is.