A screengrab from “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Credit: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver/YouTube
If you’re a fan of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” you may remember an episode from about four years ago, where host John Oliver absolutely dumps on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, accusing the conglomerate of holding customers and musicians hostage with fees and essentially having a “chokehold” on the live entertainment industry.
“Ticketmaster does share fees with other parties,” said Oliver. “Some of those other parties may also be Ticketmaster because just one year after that hearing, they completed a gigantic merger with Live Nation, which owns or operates many of the country’s top music venues and call themselves the largest producer of live music concerts in the world.”
“In fact, the DOJ recently alleged that the company had repeatedly strong-armed venues into using Ticketmaster and retaliated against or threatened venues that did not use its services.”
Well, now Live Nation has apparently “strong-armed” the Emmy-winning writer and comedian John Oliver to visit St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater for one night only on Tuesday, Dec. 29.
Tickets, which of course are available through Ticketmaster, go on sale Wednesday, Aug. 12. It’s unclear how much the tickets for the St. Pete stop will be, but available tickets for an upcoming show in New York start at $127 and go as high as $188.
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This article appears in Aug. 06-12, 2026.
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