5 days Ago By Varun Godinho
There are increasing number of voices calling on the ACCC to investigate the practices of the live music industry whose operators are being accused of monopolistic behaviour and efforts to maximise their profits at the expense of both consumers and artists. In response to concerns raised by customers of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Melbourne-based class action law firm Gordon Legal last month announced it was undertaking an investigation into allegations of “deceptive, misleading or unconscionable conduct” which “may have inflated” the price of tickets for performances and events in Australia. “We have been contacted by customers who are concerned that they have paid more than they should have for event tickets.
We are investigating their concerns, including how ‘dynamic pricing’ is influencing the cost of tickets in Australia,” said James Naughton, Class Actions Partner at Gordon Legal. “The focus of our investigation relates to whether any laws designed to protect consumers have been breached.” The class action investigation will take several months to complete.
However, in the US, a legal precedent may already be set as a group of nearly 400 fans of Taylor Swift and other musicians filed a lawsuit last week in California state court against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, accusing them of colluding with partner organisations to drive up ticket prices for concertgoers. The complaint accuses Ticketmaster and Live Nation of engaging “in a pattern of racketeering activity” whereby ticket buyers are made to “part with more money than they are led to believe, and well exceeding the value of the products and services they receive,” reported Wired. The plaintiffs allege that Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s conduct amounts to a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO – a piece of legislation that was used in the 1980s to bring down members of the mafia.
“These businesses are working together as members of a monopoly — we call them a cartel,” Jennifer Kinder, founding attorney at Kinder Law, which is representing the plaintiffs in both the state and federal cases, told Wired. “They monopolise the market so that an individual consumer does not have a fair chance at a fairly priced ticket.” Exploitative and hidden pricing accusations have been levelled against Ticketmaster and Live Nation here in Australia too.
At the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, operated by Live Nation, for example, tickets over A$65 are more than they appear. There’s a hidden service fee of $3.18.
There’s also a hidden booking fee of A$6.77 and a hidden infrastructure fee of A$0.13.
That’s roughly A$10 of fees you aren’t told about. Live Nation-owned company Ticketmaster then charges you a transaction fee of more than A$7. If it’s a Ticketmaster resale, that fee jumps to around A$17.
And then there’s the optional up to A$11 for ticket insurance. That’s around A$30–A$40 in fees alone. In Australia, the average ticket price is now A$105: 20 years ago it was just A$65.
Live Nation has denied wrongdoing. “Australia’s live entertainment industry is highly competitive evident by the fact that Live Nation is one of many promoters with TEG and Frontier among the top, while Ticketek is the largest ticketing agent in the country, and Live Nation operates less than 1 per cent of music venues in the country (6 out of the approximately 2,700 venues). The economics of our business follow the same industry models as these other players,” Live Nation told Mumbrella.
Still, with legal challenges initiated against Live Nation which posted a record revenue of nearly $23 billion (A$34 billion) in 2023 in the US and likely action being contemplated in Australia, consumers – and the competition regulator – may now take a closer look at their practices after all..
