{"id":911304,"date":"2026-06-08T16:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/ticketmaster-creates-a-climate-of-fear-british-lawmakers-declare-as-possible-investigation-looms\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T16:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:12:30","slug":"ticketmaster-creates-a-climate-of-fear-british-lawmakers-declare-as-possible-investigation-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/ticketmaster-creates-a-climate-of-fear-british-lawmakers-declare-as-possible-investigation-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticketmaster Creates a \u2018Climate of Fear,\u2019 British Lawmakers Declare As Possible Investigation Looms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ticketmaster<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Marcin Nowak<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The UK Parliamentary trade committee pushes to investigate the country\u2019s live music industry, saying Live Nation operates in a \u201cclimate of fear.\u201d<\/h2>\n

The UK\u2019s House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, comprising members of Parliament from both sides of the aisle, launched an inquiry into the region\u2019s live music industry market in December. Now, the trade committee is urging the Competition and Markets Authority to prioritize an investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n

Notably, Ticketmaster initially refused to attend, but appeared<\/a> before the committee in February, and then again in June with parent company Live Nation. But the committee says it was left with \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the state of competition in the UK live events industry, suggesting that Live Nation\u2019s dominant market position has created a \u201cclimate of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat particularly alarmed the committee was not just the scale of Live Nation\u2019s market position across promotion, venues, and ticketing, but the climate of fear we encountered during this inquiry,\u201d said<\/a> Committee Chair Liam Byrne. \u201cA striking number of submissions requested anonymity because people were worried about the consequences of speaking openly. That alone raises profound questions about the health of competition in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

A group of 30-plus U.S. state attorneys general would likely agree. It was their concern that Live Nation-Ticketmaster had been operating an illegal monopoly that led to pursuing the case against them after the federal government suddenly reached a settlement. This ultimately led to a jury finding that the companies had acted against United States antitrust law.<\/h4>\n

Now, the UK Parliamentary committee has released a report<\/a> outlining its own concerns. According to the report, of the 23.1 million tickets sold in 2025, Live Nation directly controlled 58% of them. That number increases to 66% if sales controlled by its affiliate companies are included. Live Nation also controls the lion\u2019s share of the secondary ticket market by restricting sales to Ticketmaster\u2019s resale platform.<\/p>\n

Among the concerns raised in the report were the integrated nature of Live Nation\u2019s business model, as well as the sheer scale, which make it difficult for artists and managers to operate beyond that ecosystem. Other issues included Live Nation\u2019s exclusivity deals that require artists to take part in its festivals or use its in-house promotion businesses and integrated ticketing in order to access certain venues.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritain\u2019s live music scene is one of our greatest national success stories, from grassroots venues nurturing new talent to world-class arena and stadium tours that attract global audiences,\u201d Byrne said. \u201cBut the evidence we received during this inquiry points to deep concerns about whether competition in the industry is now working fairly for fans, artists, venus, and independent promoters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s growing concern about Live Nation\u2019s market dominance<\/a> comes as lawmakers and industry advocates stateside continue to push for the forced breakup of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger. Whether that will actually happen is still up in the air.<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n

Randy Stoval
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: Marcin Nowak The UK Parliamentary trade committee pushes to investigate the country\u2019s live music industry, saying Live Nation operates in a \u201cclimate of fear.\u201d The UK\u2019s House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, comprising members of Parliament from both sides of the aisle, launched an inquiry into the region\u2019s live music industry market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":911305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23174,35449],"tags":[7808,85440],"class_list":["post-911304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-creates","category-ticketmaster","tag-creates","tag-ticketmaster"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}