Live Nation Entertainment
Live Nation, which is facing a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Joe Biden, saw its share price jump on Wednesday (Nov. 6) following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election a day earlier.
Live Nation shares gained 7.1% to $125.99 and rose as high as $127.64, just shy of its all-time high of $127.75 set on Nov. 5, 2021. Investors could see Trump’s re-entrance into the White House as a good sign for Live Nation’s efforts to thwart efforts by the DOJ to break up the company.
In a lawsuit filed in May, the DOJ alleged Live Nation abused its market power to hurt competition through exclusive ticketing contracts and threats and retaliations against venues that choose competing ticketing companies, among other actions the DOJ claims are illegal and violate the consent decree that placed competition-enhancing restrictions on the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
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“The change in administration typically brings a change in the climate around anti-trust efforts and could impact a case such as Live Nation,” says Bill Morrison, a partner at Haynes and Boone. “It depends on the who are in those key spots, and then what the priorities are of those offices. We’ve seen big pivots in the past.”
Faced with the prospect of fewer regulations and an administration perceived to be pro-market, U.S. indexes posted big gains on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3.6% to a record high. Similarly, the Nasdaq composite rose 3.0% and the S&P 500 improved 2.5% as both reached all-time highs. The NYSE composite gained 1.9% but fell short of its all-time high.
Stocks associated with Trump also fared well, including Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, campaigned heavily for Trump. The company’s shares rose 14.8% while its competitors Rivian and Lucid Group fell 8.3% and 5.3%, respectively. Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., owner of the Truth Social app used by Trump, rose 5.9%.
Bitcoin rose 9.4% to an all-time high of $76,012 on Wednesday. Trump has signaled a laissez-faire approach to cryptocurrency and said he would quickly fire Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, a critic who has punished numerous crypto companies and favors tighter regulations. Trump himself is involved with a new cryptocurrency through World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance startup that sells a token called WLFI.
In other music stocks news, music streamer LiveOne jumped 28.5% a day ahead of the company’s earnings release for the quarter ended Sept. 30 while iHeartMedia shares fell 12.6% following news that the radio broadcaster cut dozens of jobs at stations across the country this week.
Shares of Spotify rose 8.0% to $365.00 this week to lead all music stocks in a week the Billboard Global Music Index reached a new high and many of its largest components posted mid- to high-single digit gains.
The Swedish music streaming giant was boosted by a report by Pivotal Research Group that increased its price target to $510 from $460 and reiterated its “buy” rating. Spotify’s intraday high of $368.29 on Thursday set a new 52-week high for the stock and was its best mark since Feb. 21, 2021.
Spotify led the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) to a record high 1,873.87, up 4.1% for the week, as ten of the stocks posted gains this week, nine lost value and one was unchanged. After a 4.8% drop the week ending Sept. 6 and stagnating since March, the BGMI has gained 7.4% in the last two weeks and raised its year-to-date gain to 22.2%—more than two percentage points above the gains of the Nasdaq composite (up 19.6%) and the S&P 500 (also up 19.6%).
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Stocks generally had a good week after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday a rate cut of half a percentage point, the first time the central bank lowered the overnight borrowing rate since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Investors had expected the Fed’s move, though, and had priced the effect of a rate cut into stock prices. Still, the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5% to 17,948.32 and the S&P 500 rose 1.4% to 5,702.55. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index improved 0.7% to 2,736.81 and China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.2% to 2,736.81. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 fell 0.5% to 8,229.99.
Warner Music Group gained 4.9% to $30.44. WMG’s Atlantic Music Group laid off about 150 people Thursday as part of a restructuring plan that began in February. The week’s intraday high of $30.88 was WMG’s highest price since reaching $32.34 on July 24. The company also announced in an SEC filing this week it secured a $1.3 billion term loan that will be used to repay an existing loan and pay associated fees and expenses.
Live Nation shares also gained 4.9% to $103.65 and brought its year-to-date improvement to 10.7%. Thursday’s intraday high of $105.42 was its highest mark since April 1 and less than $2 below its 52-week high of $107.24. The concert promoter scored a win in Portland, Ore., this week after the city council upheld an August decision to allow the development of a 3,500-capacity music venue that will be operated by Live Nation.
Two other promoters also posted gains this week. MSG Entertainment, rose 4.6% to $42.16, while CTS Eventim improved 1.2% to 87.90 euros ($98.23). Another live entertainment company, Sphere Entertainment Co., dropped 2.7% to $41.09.
K-pop companies’ modest decline was an improvement from their consistently steep drops in recent weeks. The four South Korean companies had an average loss of 1.2% this week. HYBE fell 2.4%, JYP Entertainment dipped 1.2%, YG Entertainment slipped 0.9% and SM Entertainment lost 0.2%. After surging in previous years, the quartet has an average year-to-date loss of 40.4%.
Universal Music Group fell 3.6% to 22.75 euros ($25.42) following its Capital Markets Day on Tuesday. Analysts generally felt UMG set reachable financial targets and presented a believable roadmap about its strategy for the next four years. The Amsterdam-listed company laid out a strategy to achieve 8% to 10% cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) for its subscription revenue and above 7% CAGR for total revenue.
Music streamer LiveOne had the biggest decline of the week, dropping 6.1% to $1.38. That put shares of LiveOne into the red for 2024 with a 1.4% year-to-date loss.
Attorneys for Live Nation want the judge presiding over the company’s historic antitrust case to dismiss the Department of Justice’s allegations that the concert promoter uses illegal tying arrangements to operate its amphitheaters, arguing it has no obligation to allow rival promoters to use the venues it owns or manages.
Live Nation’s co-lead trial counsel Alfred C. Pfeiffer of Latham Watkins argued in a July 17 letter to Judge Arun Subramanian that this practice, described as a “refusal to deal,” is common in the concert business and protected by Supreme Court precedent.
“As a general matter, the Sherman Act does not restrict the long recognized right of a [defendant] engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal,” Pfeiffer writes, quoting a 2004 ruling in a case brought by Verizon.
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Accordingly, Live Nation has no obligation “to extend a helping hand to new entrants” or help its rivals “survive or expand,” Pfeiffer notes, adding, “the unimpeachable freedom to refuse to deal with rivals (in all but the rarest circumstances, which are not even arguably present in this case) rests on bedrock antitrust principles.”
In the government’s 128-page complaint against Live Nation, attorneys with the DOJ’s antitrust division allege that Live Nation illegally “conditions artists’ access” to the 56 outdoor amphitheaters the company controls by forcing artists to chose “Live Nation as the promoter for concerts at its venues.”
Pfeiffer’s letter was born out of a June 27 pre-trial hearing in which Judge Subramanian invited Live Nation’s attorneys to file a letter to the court identifying issues that Live Nation had with the DOJ complaint “as opposed to advancing those arguments after” an amended complaint is filed,” Pfeiffer wrote. “Your Honor advised that doing so would provide Defendants ‘a good argument that those claims should be dismissed with prejudice’” if the government cannot overcome Live Nation’s arguments on a motion to dismiss.
Live Nation lawyers also want the antitrust claims filed by 30 states’ attorneys general alongside the DOJ dismissed, including 22 separate claims under their own state laws.
“These claims are threadbare and conclusory” Pfeiffer writes, noting that many of the state AGs merely repeat the DOJ’s allegations without specifically alleging “the elements of each state-law claim” or citing “what conduct allegedly violates the state laws in question.”
Pfeiffer also criticized the states for failing to detail their damage claims and argued that many of the state objections were barred by different state’s statute of limitations.
The DOJ has until Sept. 18 to respond to Live Nation’s letter.
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The Justice Department and several states are joining together to sue Live Nation Entertainment in connection to Ticketmaster, whose side accuses the company of owning a monopoly on live entertainment. Justice Department officials are accusing Ticketmaster of blocking out potential opportunities for other companies by striking exclusive ticket and venue deals that essentially gave them the lion’s share of the market.
The New York Times reports that based on the accounts of unnamed invidious close to the matter, the federal government, along with a grouping of states that were not announced in the outlet’s report. The position that will be taken when the matter goes to court is the accusation that Live Nation struck exclusive ticketing contracts with certain concert venues and served as the main ticket hub for concert tours.
Further, the government will claim that other business factors such as venue management according to insiders, aided Live Nation in becoming a monopoly by passing on high costs to consumers and causing damage to any competitors’ efforts to enter the field. Further, the DOJ will state within the lawsuit that tours that were promoted by the entertainment company were more likely to play shows where Ticketmaster had exclusive rights to ticket sales.
Ticketmaster reportedly sells about 600 million tickets annually according to global tallies. It is estimated that the company’s ticketing business is responsible for between 70 and 80 percent of major concert venues domestically.
In 2023, a congressional hearing was held that was sparked by a frenzied Taylor Swift tour presale event which millions of fans were unable to participate in. Both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate called the company a monopoly
The lawsuit will be filed in the Southern District of New York.
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Photo: Getty
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Rapper Larry June’s latest project sees him teaming up with The Alchemist, with a large tour to take place after its release.
Larry June has been hard at work with the celebrated producer on his album The Great Escape. The Bay Area native posted teasers giving fans a look into his creative collaborative process with The Alchemist on social media, stoking the anticipation. “He’s been here watching the whole evolution of this shit and still in the game,” Larry said of the producer in a recent interview. “Al was somebody I looked up to musically, too. He’s done so much in hip-hop for him to be able to be relevant and jump on a new artist like myself and rap, make all the beats, and still got a crazy legacy.“
For the iconic producer, working with June was invigorating. “I find [that with] MCs that I could really mesh with, we got to find a way where we can find a sound that works,” he said. “I’ve discovered that he’s versatile. He can do a lot of shit, so when we got up it was easy. And he’s one of the easiest people that I’ve ever worked with and the most fun because his energy is positive and we going up every time. The album is set for release on March 31st.
On Tuesday (March 21st), he announced that there will be a tour for the new album as well, produced by Live Nation. The “Larry’s Market Run” Tour is a huge one, which will see him hit 47 cities across North America beginning on May 8th at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’ll be hitting the road with Monroe Flow & DVME, stopping in major cities including Dallas, Chicago, and New York while making two stops in Canada when the tour hits Toronto and Vancouver. The tour will end at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California on July 23rd.
Tickets for the tour will be available on for presale audience purchase on Wednesday (March 22nd), and open to the general public on Friday (March 24th). There are already two singles that have been released, “60 Days” and “89 Earthquake” with more to follow in the days before the album’s release. In addition, the making of the album has been captured through a documentary produced by Miggs.
For more information on the tour dates (see below) and to purchase tickets, check out Larry June’s website. Check out The Great Escape documentary below.
LARRY’S MARKET RUN TOUR DATES
Mon May 08 – Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
Tue May 09 – Madison, WI – Majestic Theatre
Wed May 10 – Columbia, MO – Blue Note
Fri May 12 – Louisville, KY – Mercury Ballroom
Sun May 14 – St Louis, MO – Delmar Hall
Mon May 15 – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s
Tue May 16 – Cleveland, OH – House of Blues
Thu May 18 – Little Rock, AR – The Hall
Fri May 19 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
Sat May 20 – San Antonio, TX – The Aztec Theater
Mon May 22 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Tue May 23 – Houston, TX – Bayou Music Center
Fri May 26 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
Sun May 28 – Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
Mon May 29 – El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
Tue May 30 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
Thu Jun 01 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot
Sat Jun 03 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theater
Sun Jun 04 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
Mon Jun 05 – Seattle, WA – Neptune
Tue Jun 06 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
Sat Jun 10 – Denver, CO – Summit
Tue Jun 13 – Chicago, IL – House of Blues
Thu Jun 15 – Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
Sat Jun 17 – Grand Rapids, MI – Elevation
Sun Jun 18 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Detroit
Mon Jun 19 – Toronto, ON – Opera House
Wed Jun 21 – Boston, MA – House of Blues
Thu Jun 22 – New Haven, CT – Toads
Sat Jun 24 – New York, NY – Hammerstein Ballroom
Sun Jun 25 – Philadelphia, PA – TLA
Tue Jun 27 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring
Thu Jun 29 – Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
Fri Jun 30 – Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte
Sat Jul 01 – Nashville, TN – Marathon Music Works
Mon Jul 03 – Charleston, SC – Music Farm
Wed Jul 05 – Miami, FL – The Oasis
Thu Jul 06 – Orlando, FL – House of Blues Orlando
Sat Jul 08 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
Mon Jul 10 – New Orleans, LA – The Fillmore New Orleans
Wed Jul 12 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Criterion
Fri Jul 14 – Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
Sat Jul 15 – San Diego, CA – SOMA
Sun Jul 16 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
Wed Jul 19 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst
Fri Jul 21 – Sacramento, CA – Ace of Spades
Sun Jul 23 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
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Live Nation’s 2022 was record-breaking across basically all key metrics — revenue, concert attendance, gross transaction value and sponsorships were all at all-time highs — and the company expects 2023 to top that.
As the company reported Thursday (Feb) with its fourth quarter earnings, total revenue reached a record $16.7 billion in 2022 — up 44% from the pre-pandemic era of 2019. That growth was spread across a number of factors: more fans, more concerts, more spending per fan, higher average ticket prices and a greater number of large sponsors.
Adjusted operating income improved 49% to $1.4 billion over the year, and operating free cash flow rose nearly four-fold to $1.8 billion.
Concert revenue in 2022 was $13.49 billion, up 43.1% from 2019 and 185.8% more than 2021. Concert attendance reached 121 million fans in 2022, up 24% from 2019 and a 246% increase from 2021, a year Live Nation began to recover from the pandemic but was not yet at full strength. The concerts division put on 43,600 events in 2022, up 153.2% from 2021 and up 8.4% from 2019. Attendance for Venue Nation, the venues operated by Live Nation, reached almost 50 million.
Ticketing revenues of $2.24 billion was up 44.9% from 2019 and up 97.4% from 2021. Fee-bearing ticket volume rose 28% from 2019 to 280 million. Fee-bearing gross transaction value grew to $28 billion, up more than 50% from 2019.
The average ticket costs were higher in 2022, too. With more tickets priced dynamically to true market value, Live Nation estimates $700 million was shifted to artists (and, presumably, away from the secondary market). That said, the average entry price for tickets remained below $35 in the U.S.
Even though consumers felt the pinch of high inflation throughout 2022, music fans didn’t shy away from spending money at Live Nation concerts. Ancillary per-fan spending rose at least 20% across all venue types from 2019 levels.
Sponsorship revenue reached $968 million, up 64% from 2019 and 135% greater than 2021. Live Nation had 120 large sponsors globally, up 32% from 2019. Last year, the company added PayPal, GoPuff, Hulu and Snap as sponsors. They and other new, large sponsors accounted for 80% of sponsorship’s revenue growth in 2022.
Live Nation points to a number of leading indicators that suggest 2023 will be even stronger than 2022. As of mid-February, event-related deferred revenue — tickets sales for concerts that have not yet occurred — was up $400 million to $2.7 billion. Also through mid-February, ticket sales are up 20% and fee-bearing gross transaction value of tickets sold is up 33%.
Live Nation Concerts has announced Geni Lincoln will be joining the company as their new president of California region. Lincoln will oversee all booking, marketing and business operations in California for the leading live entertainment promoter. She previously served as the GM and senior vp of live events for the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif.
“I am very excited to return to Live Nation and join the stellar California team,” said Lincoln. “I have been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the best teams in the business and look forward to continuing growing those relationships in this role at Live Nation.”
Concert industry veteran Rich Best, who previously served as president of California is now joining Live Nation’s global team. Under the leadership of Arthur Fogel and Omar Al-joulani, the global promoting team produces and promotes Live Nation’s worldwide tours for artists including The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Post Malone, Bruno Mars and more. Best has been with Live Nation for over 20 years, and in his time as a promoter has continued to help a roster of artists plan worldwide tours including Pearl Jam, Rufus Du Sol, and more.
Lincoln has worked at the Kia Forum for nine years and was part of the team responsible for maintaining the legendary venue’s high rankings every year and transforming the artist experience there. Live Nation booked hundreds of shows during Lincoln’s time at the Forum and Lincoln has worked very closely with much of the team she is now leading.
“We are thrilled to welcome Geni back to Live Nation, leading our California team,” said Jordan Zachary, co-president of US Concerts. “In her prior role at the Forum she has worked incredibly closely with our teams and we’re excited to see her continue to support even more of our division and the artists we support across California.”
Best added “This is a great opportunity for my friend Geni and I give her a warm welcome to one of the most vibrant concert markets in the world. At the same time I’m incredibly excited to take the next step living out my dream working with artists on a global stage.”
Her move to Live Nation is full circle as she began her career working for House of Blues Entertainment at Universal Amphitheatre in Hollywood, which became part of Live Nation during her tenure. (Universal Amphitheatre closed in 2013). In addition to her work in live events, Geni has also spent the last five years volunteering with Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Los Angeles – a non-profit social justice organization empowering young girls through music education.
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