{"id":191718,"date":"2026-04-10T03:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191718\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T03:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:24:36","slug":"live-nation-antitrust-trial-nears-end-as-lawyer-for-34-states-labels-the-concerts-giant-a-monopolist-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191718\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Nation antitrust trial nears end as lawyer for 34 states labels the concerts giant a monopolist"},"content":{"rendered":"

By LARRY NEUMEISTER<\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A lawyer for 34 states suing Live Nation Entertainment tried to convince a jury Thursday during an antitrust trial<\/a> \u2019s closing arguments that the company and its ticketing arm, Ticketmaster, are monopolizing the industry<\/a> and driving up concert prices.<\/p>\n

But a lawyer for Live Nation insisted in Manhattan federal court that there is more competition than ever and the company plays fair amid a booming concert business across America.<\/p>\n

The states, attorney David Marriott said, failed to prove that Live Nation had acted as a monopolist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t, and they didn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The federal government led the civil claims case until it settled the lawsuit<\/a> it brought in 2024 several weeks ago, saying it had won important concessions from Live Nation, particularly in the sale of tickets at dozens of the company\u2019s amphitheaters. The settlement delayed the trial for a week while states conducted mostly unsuccessful negotiations with Live Nation.<\/p>\n

After closing arguments concluded, jurors were instructed on the law by Judge Arun Subramanian. They were expected to start deliberations late Thursday or Friday.<\/p>\n

In his closing, attorney Jeffrey Kessler argued on behalf of the states that evidence has shown that the companies \u201cviolated antitrust laws and it is time to hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reminded jurors that since it was a civil trial, they only needed to find that the states had proven by a preponderance of the evidence \u2014 more than 50% \u2014 that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally wielded monopoly power.<\/p>\n

Kessler labeled the company a \u201cmonopolistic bully\u201d and said it had employed practices that \u201ckept digging the moat around the monopoly castle in order to protect their market position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Live Nation\u2019s control of 86% of the market for concerts and 73% of the overall market when sports events are included, showed it had monopoly power, he said.<\/p>\n

Marriott countered that Live Nation and Ticketmaster were merely reaping the fruits of decades of hard work that created the best products in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the biggest entertainment company and ticketer in the country. We\u2019re not hiding from that fact,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are big. That is not against the laws in the United States. Success is not against the antitrust laws in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marriott also said the company tries to \u201coutflank and outcompete\u201d its competitors and the jury should not punish the company because the states had shown some communications in which employees who are \u201cfierce competitors\u201d talk about crushing the competition.<\/p>\n

He defended the company decision not to immediately fire an employee who acknowledged<\/a> from the witness stand that he had written a series of messages from late 2021 through early 2023 in which he mocked customers as \u201cso stupid\u201d and said the company was \u201crobbing them blind, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say, sometimes, stupid stuff,\u201d Marriott said, noting the comments were made about the price of lawn chairs and parking. \u201cWe don\u2019t condone that. But we also don\u2019t just ax somebody because they made a mistake years in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he said, venues and artists are doing better than ever and fans are benefiting from a robust and thriving entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to help venues and artists make money. We don\u2019t make excuses for that,\u201d Marriott said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By LARRY NEUMEISTER NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A lawyer for 34 states suing Live Nation Entertainment tried to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[63313,28056,75,84,83,76607,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-191718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-antitrust-trial","9":"tag-live-nation","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-monopoly","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}