— this one is made public to fans.Live Nation is the world's largest live entertainment company, behind some of the biggest concerts globally.The company has been raking in record revenue — in 2023, it earned nearly $US23 billion , and its chief executive is among the highest-paid in America.
In Australia, the average ticket price is now $105: 20 years ago it was just $65. It's increased thanks to COVID-19, inflation, and the rising costs of putting on gigs. "I say all the time, what is the inside charge for? And they say, you know, it's the inside charge," he said. Live Nation added that Ticketmaster didn't set fees and they were decided by venues to "cover costs for both the venue and the ticketing company".
Almost 15 years later, in May, the US Department of Justice — which approved the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger — announced it would sue the company, accusing it of monopolising markets across the live music industry and locking out competition. Many in the industry fear a similar pattern could emerge in Australia if the company is left unchecked.
"The reason you have a booking agent in the first place is because they represent you and shop your band to venues for opportunities to play there," drummer Miles Wilson said."It was our album tour, it was our most successful album to date, so we did this tour, and it grossed about $100,000 of ticket sales," guitarist Alex Cameron said.
"A few thousand dollars of merch fees is a pittance to Live Nation. It's a huge amount of money for a band like us.""We started off very ignorant about how it works financially, which is obviously on us, but I don't think many musicians get into music with a background in any of that sort of thing," Alex Cameron said.
"If they want to take 10 per cent of the revenues and call it a facility fee, they can and have, if they want to charge $30,000 for the house nut, they can and have, and if they want to charge us $250 for a stack of 10 clean towels, they can and have," band member Clyde Lawerence said. "It comes down to what our values are as a society, do we want the profits from the live music industry — which we know are there — do we want them lining the pockets of shareholders overseas in Live Nation, or do we want at least a small percentage of that to filter back down to the grassroots?"
"They in particular are egregious because they use, and I would say misuse, their market power, particularly in places like the United States," Garrett said. "It was quite easy to see the amount of Live Nation venues that had appeared comparatively to pre-COVID," she told Four Corners."You'd like to support independent venues, so we would try and do that, if they have the monopoly on everything and every venue that you play at, you can't really help all of the money going to the one place.Camp Cope decided it was too difficult to keep going as a band, with Thommo tweeting that the music industry was a "bin fire".
"Live Nation offered them a worldwide tour and I know that Chris Martin didn't want to leave us. Live Nation just kept adding millions and millions and in the end, we lost out." "Live Nation f***ed it up, basically, they pay too much for acts … it's all about their share price." "I don't think there's any doubt that we are heading down a pathway where these sorts of anti-competitive risks are going to exist within the music sector," he told Four Corners.
"At 1,500 capacity, the ticket price and the number of people in the room will be sufficient to get you a profitable live show," he said."It's frankly disgraceful that the biggest companies in the music industry are prepared to see small venues — that get them that talent — closing down, they should be ashamed of that, they need to be called to account."
Of the 34 small venues where Oasis played on that UK tour, "23 have closed in the last 30 years," Davyd said.Davyd has pitched the concept of a ticket levy, where a dollar from every ticket sold at a large show would go to a struggling venue — it was endorsed by the UK parliament, which then asked companies like Live Nation to be proactive in rolling out.
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