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It was a good week for music stocks overall and an even better week for concert promoters, who made the biggest gains on the Billboard Global Music Index ahead of the blockbuster summer touring season.
The index rose 4.4% to 1,256.06 this week, with 15 of the 21 stocks ending in positive territory. It was led by concert promoter Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s (MSGE) 19.4% gain amidst multiple news items that influenced the share price. On Wednesday (May 17), Guggenheim initiated coverage of MSGE with a buy rating, while a report claimed that MSG Entertainment may sell the theater at Madison Square Garden for about $1 billion. On Thursday, the company released first-quarter results that showed a 4% increase in revenue to $201 million, though the company’s executives did not comment on the report during Thursday’s earnings call.
Shares of German promoter CTS Eventim also made big gains, rising 9.2% to 64.30 euros ($68.61). On Thursday, the company’s first-quarter earnings showed a 163% revenue jump to 366.2 million euros ($396 million) — beating pre-pandemic levels from the first quarter of 2019 by 29.5%. Year-to-date, CTS Eventim has sold 18 million tickets online, a 58% increase from the prior-year period. Meanwhile, Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, improved 8.4% to $84.73 and is now up 21.5% year to date. Sphere Entertainment Co., which spun off MSG Entertainment in April, improved 6.1% to $23.61.
The S&P 500 improved 1.6% to 4,191.98 and the Nasdaq composite rose 3% to 12,657.90. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index was unchanged at 7,756.87, while South Korea’s KOSPI composite index rose 2.5% to 2,537.79.
K-pop companies continued their hot streak this week. Two companies not in the Billboard Global Music Index, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment, gained 22.7% and 17.8%, respectively. Year-to-date, shares of JYP Entertainment, home to Stray Kids and Twice, have gained 70.6%. Shares of YG Entertainment, whose roster includes recent Coachella headliner Blackpink, are up 109.8% in 2023. Shares of HYBE dropped slightly by 0.4% but have gained 62% year to date. Likewise, shares of SM Entertainment gained only 1.1% this week but have grown 40% this year.
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In case you might have forgotten, 50 Cent is first and foremost a rapper. Although lately he’s gotten more attention for his behind the scene moves in television and his trolling on social media, the Queens native is hitting the road for a global tour that includes Busta Rhymes and Jeremih as well as special guests.
Fitty’s THE FINAL LAP TOUR 2023 will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of his landmark album Get Rich Or Die Tryin‘. The Dungeon Dragon Busta Rhymes will be performing all the dates while R&B singer Jeremih will also be in attendance at all the North American stops.
Produced by Live Nation and presented by Sire Spirits, The Final Lap Tour will hits citiies like Cleveland, Virginia Beach, Charlotte and Brooklyn stateside before heading overseas and arriving in locations like Berlin, Zurich and Oslo. Also, additional markets will be added in the following months.
The Final Lap Tour kicks off on Friday, July 21 at the Maverik Center in Salt Lake City, UT and will wrap its stateside leg at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Detroit on Sunday, September 17. From there, the internation portion starts on Thursday, September 28 at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, Netherlands and will wrap up on Sunday, Nov 12 at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England.
Of course, 50 Cent’s own Sire Spirits brands, Branson Cognac and Le Chemin du Roi Champagne, will be available throghout the tour, local laws permitting.
As for tickets:
North American Tickets: Verified Fan will be used for The Final Lap Tour to ensure more tickets get into the hands of fans. Fans in North America can register now through Sunday, May 7th at 11:59 PM ET for the Verified Fan presale CLICK HERE. Fans who are selected to receive an access code will be able to participate in the Verified Fan presale starting Wednesday, May 10th. Limited tickets will be sold during a general on sale starting Friday, May 12th at 10am local time at Ticketmaster.com while supplies last.
VIP Tickets: Fans can also access VIP Packages which may include premium tickets, VIP parking and exclusive access to a pre-show lounge, special entry, Sire Spirits bottle signings, access to afterparty events, and more. For VIP Package information, visit vipnation.com and for all other tour and ticket information, visit livenation.com.
European Tickets: Tickets will be available starting with local presales on Wednesday, May 10th at 10am local time and available to the general public on Friday, May 12th at 10am local time on 50Cent.com.
Check out all the dates of the tour below.
THE FINAL LAP TOUR 2023 – NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:
Fri Jul 21 – Salt Lake City, UT – Maverik Center
Sun Jul 23 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
Tue Jul 25 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – STL
Thu Jul 27 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center
Fri Jul 28 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
Sat Jul 29 – Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center
Mon Jul 31 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
Wed Aug 02 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Thu Aug 03 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center
Sat Aug 05 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater
Sun Aug 06 – Cleveland, OH – Blossom Music Center
Tue Aug 08 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
Wed Aug 09 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
Fri Aug 11 – Hartford, CT – XFINITY Theatre
Sat Aug 12 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
Sun Aug 13 – Virginia Beach, VA – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
Tue Aug 15 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
Wed Aug 16 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
Thu Aug 17 – Atlanta, GA – Lakewood Amphitheatre
Sat Aug 19 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Sun Aug 20 – West Palm Beach, FL – iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
Tue Aug 22 – Tuscaloosa, AL – Tuscaloosa Amphitheater
Thu Aug 24 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center
Fri Aug 25 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion
Sun Aug 27 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater
Tue Aug 29 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
Wed Aug 30 – Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com Arena
Thu Aug 31 – Chula Vista, CA – North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre
Sat Sep 02 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre
Mon Sep 04 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center
Wed Sep 06 – Ridgefield, WA – RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Thu Sep 07 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
Fri Sep 08 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
Sun Sep 10 – Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome
Mon Sep 11 – Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
Wed Sep 13 – Winnipeg, MB – Canada Life Centre
Fri Sep 15 – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
Sat Sep 16 – Chicago, IL – United Center
Sun Sep 17 – Detroit, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre
THE FINAL LAP TOUR 2023 – EUROPEAN TOUR DATES:
Thu Sep 28 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ziggo Dome
Fri Sep 29 – Hamburg, Germany – Barclays Arena
Sat Sep 30 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena
Wed Oct 4 – Oslo, Norway – Spektrum*
Thu Oct 5 – Trondheim, Norway – Spektrum*
Sat Oct 07 – Stockholm, Sweden – Avicii Arena
Mon Oct 09 – Riga, Latvia – Arena Riga*
Wed Oct 11 – Lodz Poland – Atlas Arena
Sat Oct 14 – Berlin, Germany – Mercedes-Benz Arena
Sun Oct 15 – Oberhausen, Germany – Rudolf-Weber-Arena
Fri Oct 20 – Zurich, Switzerland – Hallenstadion
Sat Oct 21 – Nice, France – Palais Nikaia
Sun Oct 22 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum
Tue Oct 24 – Munich, Germany – Olympiahalle
Wed Oct 25 – Mannheim, Germany – SAP Arena
Thu Oct 26 – Brussels, Belgium – Forest National
Sat Oct 28 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena
Tue Oct 31 – Strasbourg, France – Zenith
Thu Nov 02 – Nantes, France – Zenith
Fri Nov 03 – Paris, France – La Defense Arena
Mon Nov 06 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Arena
Thu Nov 09 – Glasgow, Scotland – OVO Hydro
Fri Nov 10 – Manchester, England – AO Arena
Sat Nov 11 – London, England – The O2
Sun Nov 12 – Birmingham, England – Resorts World Arena
*NOT A LIVE NATION DATE
Live Nation announced the return of Concert Week on Thursday morning (May 4), the $25 all-in ticket deal that will cover more than 3,800 shows across North America this year. The week-long annual program will offer limited-time low-dough tickets specials for shows by more than 300 acts, including gigs by Janet Jackson, Fall Out Boy, Don Toliver, Maroon 5, Shania Twain, Snoop Dogg and more.
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Between May 10-16, fans can click here to see the full list of available shows, filtered by the events, venues or artists; on the site fans can also search for the closest city with a participating gig. Tickets will be available beginning with Verizon and Rakuten presales, with the both kicking off on May 9 at 10 a.m. ET through 11:59 p.m. local time.
Among the lengthy list of other acts participating in Concert Week are: 5 Seconds of Summer, The Offspring, Garbage and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, the Outlaw Music Festival, Pantera, Hayley Kiyoko, Ghost, P!nk, Pepe Aguilar, Pentatonix, Avenged Sevenfold, Bebe Rexha, Beck & Phoenix, Hunter Hayes, Incubus, Jason Aldean, Rob Zombie & Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Boy George & Culture Club, Jelly Roll, Keith Urban, Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, Santana, Sam Hunt, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Brooks & Dunn, Charlie Puth, Def Leppard & Motley Crue, LL Cool J, Luke Bryan, Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, Maneskin, Louis Tomlinson, Miranda Lambert, Wizkid, Wu-Tang Clan and Nas and more.
Concert Week ticket will be available on a limited-time, while supplies last basis, with tickets including all fees upfront in the $25 cost; any taxes will be added at checkout as applicable in each city, state or venue. Click here to see the full list of participating events.
Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino was in Washington D.C. over the weekend, hosting his own party around the White Correspondents Dinner on Saturday.
The Axios After Hours Presented by Live Nation party on Saturday was held at the National Building Museum with media partner Axios after the White House Correspondents dinner ended and included a private performance from rising country star Lainey Wilson.
Rapino, who received $139 million in salary and stocks last year, according to a SEC fillings, isn’t a major political donor and hasn’t appeared at a major congressional hearing in a decade. But with the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster coming under fire from lawmakers in recent years over long-standing concerns about anti-competitor business practices and the Taylor Swift ticketing crash in November, Rapino’s presence capped off a frenzied lobbying effort over the last two years to build a political base for the company.
Financially, Live Nation had its best year ever in 2022, posting a record $16.7 in revenue last year and $732 million in income. But the growing music conglomerate has largely been politically inactive in the years following its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster.
That changed in 2019 when the Department of Justice recommended extending a consent degree governing the 2010 merger. Last election cycle, Live Nation spent $1.4 million lobbying Congress, more than it has ever spent before. That spending is expected to continue unabridged in 2023 as Live Nation continues to lobby for ticketing reform legislation to curb illegal scalping activities, floating its own FAIR ticketing proposal as as a possible model for legislation.
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino’s total compensation package rose to $139 million in 2022, up from $13.8 million the previous year.
Rapino’s compensation included a base salary of $3 million, up from $2.6 million in 2021 (which came as Rapino agreed to take a pay reduction during the pandemic). Live Nation entered into a new employment agreement with Rapino in July 2022, ending Dec. 31, 2027, which meant he also earned a $6 million signing bonus.
The executive also earned a $12 million annual cash performance bonus for 2022 and stock awards of $116 million, some of which vest in early 2024, while others vest in four installments through 2027 if the company reaches certain stock price targets.
CFO Joe Berchtold also saw his overall compensation jump to $52.4 million in 2022, up from $5 million the prior year. His base salary increased slightly to $1.3 million from $1.1 million, and he also earned a signing bonus of $6 million and an annual cash performance bonus of $2.5 million. Berchtold received $42.4 million in stock awards.
These pay bumps come after a rocky year for the company.
The Ticketmaster, which falls under Live Nation Entertainment, has faced backlash since its site experienced errors and site slowdowns during its Taylor Swift presale for verified fans in fall 2022. Since then, the company has faced pushback from lawmakers over its merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation and is said to be undergoing an investigation by the Department of Justice. At the same time, concert attendance has been on the rise, as has the company’s revenue.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal’s new legislation aims to take on Ticketmaster by clamping down on the use of long-term contracts to lock up the exclusive ticketing rights of U.S. venues and festivals. But it could backfire in a way that would negatively affect venues and fans.
Titled the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act, the legislation — introduced on the same day as a second bill from Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would ban hidden ticket fees — is a clear attempt to break Ticketmaster’s grip on the ticketing industry, although it never actually mentions the Live Nation-owned company by name. (A press release announcing the Unlocking Ticket Markets Act says today’s concert marketplace is dominated “by one company” with a “70-80 percent market share” thanks in part to the long-term contracts its clients sign for its services.) But while Klobuchar and Blumental believe shortening ticketing contracts will promote competition, the proposal doesn’t seem to consider the benefits these contracts offer the venue clients.
Ever since Ticketmaster dethroned Ticketron as the top ticket seller in the 1980s, the company has built its dominance by offering large upfront cash payments in exchange for exclusive deals. This practice has become commonplace from ticketing companies in live entertainment, and venues and sports teams have come to rely on these advances — which can equal hundreds of thousands of dollars for smaller venues and millions of dollars for arenas and stadiums, increasing in value based on the length of the term — that are paid off over the term of the deal through fees added to the face value of each ticket.
This is a bargaining tool the ticketing companies use to acquire more venue customers, but within that, it’s at the venues’ discretion what kind of deal to take, passing the cost of that loan onto their customers as ticketing fees. If venues haven’t repaid the advance at the end of the contract term, they typically have two options: cut a check to the ticketing company to cover the difference or re-up their deal and borrow more money.
Klobuchar and Blumenthal’s bill would essentially shorten the length of the exclusive ticketing contracts by ordering the Federal Trade Commission to “prevent the use of excessively long multi-year exclusive contracts,” according to a press release announcing the proposed legislation. (The text of the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act is not public, so it’s not clear how “excessively long” is defined, though average ticketing contracts are about five to six years.) If the FTC opted to limit ticketing to half of the average terms, Ticketmaster’s competitors would have twice as many opportunities to bid for those contracts the company holds.
Shorter contracts would either mean less money for venues, or greater risk that they would fail to repay the advances — in which case venues would either need to repay the remaining balance or negotiate that debt into a contract renewal. For example, a temporary four-month downturn in business is going to have a greater impact on a two-year, $2 million loan than it would on a four-year, $4 million loan. To protect themselves, ticketing companies would likely increase the fees added to tickets to recoup faster, thereby reducing the heightened risk of default — likely meaning higher costs to consumers.
A bill focused on contract length also fails to address long-standing complaints that venues often work with Ticketmaster because of a perception that it means parent company Live Nation will bring more events to their building. This sort of business practice is prohibited under the consent decree that has governed Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s operations since merging in 2010, but that hasn’t stopped accusations of anticompetitive behavior. While Live Nation has long denied this charge, during a January Senate Judiciary hearing probing Ticketmaster’s botched sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Sens. Klobuchar and Blumenthal indicated they believed that Ticketmaster’s relationship with Live Nation was the main reason Ticketmaster held a such a large market share of the ticketing business. Term lengths of the company’s contracts, however, were rarely mentioned.
In response to the introduction of the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act, a Ticketmaster spokesperson told Billboard, “The ticketing industry is more competitive than ever. Ticketmaster wins business because it offers the best product available for venues, and the length of contracts is generally decided by venues and the guaranteed payments they want to help support their expenses. We do not expect any of the proposed changes to have a material impact on our business as we historically add clients in competitive marketplaces.”
Changing the terms of those loans, as Klobuchar and Blumenthal seek to do by limiting exclusive ticketing deals, could either cause venues to earn less money on the ticketing deals or increase the fees they charge consumers to repay those loans — making ticket prices even more expensive in a climate where most Americans already feel they’re paying too much.
Rich Paul, founder and CEO of Klutch Sports Group and United Talent Agency board member and head of sports, has joined the board of directors at Live Nation. Paul, who is longtime partner of pop superstar Adele, boasts a client list that includes LeBron James, John Wall, Anthony Davis and Draymond Green and “brings a valuable perspective from sports, business, entertainment and more,” said Greg Maffei, chairman of the Live Nation board of directors. “We’re fortunate to welcome him as a new addition to our board.”
Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino noted that “Rich understands what it takes to help talent develop a long and successful career. His input will be a great addition as we continue driving more value for artists and their fans through live shows.”
Paul, who has regularly been named one of the most powerful agents in sports by Forbes, ESPN and Sports Illustrated — which crowned him “The King Maker” on a 2019 cover — got his start working with James in 2003. He later joined CAA and went on to launch his sports agency Klutch in 2012. In 2020, he became the first African American to sit on the board of UTA, which made a significant investment in his company Klutch the year prior. Last year, he inked a deal with New Balance for the launch of the Klutch Athletics clothing line.
“Live Nation’s artist-centric approach to business makes this a really natural fit for me,” said Paul in a statment. “Going to an event live is one of the most powerful ways to experience sports and music, and I look forward to contributing to the company and the industry in this new way.”
Financing and investment company Cutting Edge Media Music acquired the full music catalog of United Kingdom-based media company First Score Music. The acquisition gives Cutting Edge complete master and publishing rights to over 75 film scores, including original music rights to films from Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish‘s Imaginarium Productions. This includes Imaginarium’s upcoming animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm as well as its Taika Waititi-directed film Next Goal Wins with a score by Michael Giacchino. The catalog also includes scores by composers such as Carter Burwell, Christophe Beck, Hildur Guðnadóttir, David Newman and Rachel Portman for films including Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Midway and Greenland.
Atlantic Records formed a joint venture with TAG Music, a new record label founded by artist-turned-executive Gabe Saporta (Cobra Starship, Midtown). The first releases under the deal include the singles “Nosebleed” from Los Angeles-based singer Sophie Powers (released March 31) and “Red Is My Favorite Color” from emo alt-rock artist Jules Is Dead in April.
China-based streaming service NetEase Cloud Music renewed its deal with independent Asian “Mandopop” label Rock Records to distribute both its back catalog and upcoming releases in China. Under the agreement, NetEase and Rock Records will continue collaborating to promote Rock Records artists and content; the new deal also “extends the strategic cooperation towards more in-depth initiatives on copyright cooperation between the two parties,” according to a press release, including the rights to sublicense Rock Records music for various uses including third-party applications, website background music and smart devices. Founded in 1980, Rock Records is home to popular artists including Tayu Lo, Jonathan Lee and Wakin Chau.
Symphonic announced a partnership with Boston-based music technology company Formless that will see Symphonic integrate Formless’ SHARE Protocol for blockchain technology. The protocol will roll out to a select group of Symphonic clients who express an interest in Web3. Artists using the technology will be able to control access terms to their music, including streaming price, and receive payments instantly while splitting royalties with collaborators and fans.
PayPal and Live Nation unveiled a multi-year partnership naming PayPal as the “preferred payments partner” of Ticketmaster, according to a press release. Under the deal, fans will be able to pay with PayPal, PayPal Pay Later products and Venmo across the Ticketmaster platform. PayPal Braintree will also become Ticketmaster’s primary global payment processor, speeding up the checkout process while giving fans access to event add-ons like merchandise and parking for purchase. The partnership also entails an “expanded global marketing program to drive broad engagement and fan loyalty through experiences and offers,” including by rewarding a limited number of fans who use PayPal and Venmo to pay for festivals like Bonnaroo, BottleRock and Lollapalooza with ticket discounts and “Cashless credits” to those events.
Live Nation president/CEO Michael Rapino is once again dipping into his personal bank account to convey his financial support and commitment to the concert promotion company he’s been building since 2005. On Friday (March 31), he purchased approximately $1 million worth of company stock “in order to maintain his strong level of stock ownership in the Company,” according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The purchase is a bit confusing since it was part of a tax withholding effort and was technically listed as a sale of shares by Rapino rather than an acquisition. But just as he did in March 2020, Rapino spent approximately $1 million of his own money to increase the number of Live Nation shares he held in his portfolio.
Rapino made the March 2020 purchase just as the company’s share price, and most of the stock market, was being battered by fears of a deep recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the company was trading at $38.60 per share, down nearly 50% from weeks earlier when the stock was trading at approximately $74 per share.
Today, that $1 million Rapino invested in the company in 2020 is worth $1.8 million, with the Live Nation stock hovering around $68 to $70 per share — better than it was during the early days of the pandemic, but lower than shareholders want considering that the company enjoyed record revenue in 2022 and is poised for a big 2023 with superstar artists like Beyoncé, Drake and Madonna hitting the road. Rapino’s latest purchase is a way to shore up confidence in the company as it heads into another promising year.
Dragging the company’s share price down are concerns about debt and regulatory pressure from Washington, D.C. Live Nation carried $3.7 billion in debt prior to the pandemic and now shows a debt level of $6 billion. With nearly $5.1 billion of that debt set at a fixed interest rate, the company will easily be able to service its interest payments, but it’s unlikely to raise additional capital for acquisitions in the short term due to federal monetary shifts toward higher interest rates. On the regulatory front, the company is facing both long-term scrutiny over its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster and more recent attention over its handling of the 2022 ticket sale for Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour.
Friday’s purchase was structured differently than the March 2020 purchase, which saw Rapino buy the $1 million in company shares off the open market. Instead, it was part of a share surrender by Rapino and other executives over taxes due on vested restricted stock awards. As part of the company’s equity incentive plan, Rapino was to surrender 22,204 shares of restricted stock back to the company to cover withholding taxes but opted to pay $1 million out of his own pocket toward taxes due on his 2022 stock award, “hereby retaining ownership of 14,285 shares of common stock of the Company that would have otherwise been surrendered to the Company to pay taxes,” according to the SEC filing.
Rapino currently holds 5.2 million shares of Live Nation, consisting of 3.5 million shares of common stock, options to purchase an additional 600,000 shares and a performance share award targeted at 1.1 million shares of common stock.
The country’s two leading concert companies, Live Nation and AEG, are at odds over how Congress should address the future of ticketing after a disagreement over Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras Tour.
Long before the pop star’s Nov. 15 sale dominated the news cycle, where hundreds of thousands of Swift fans experienced service disruptions that kept them from buying the tickets they wanted, the two companies had signed an agreement that many thought might take AEG out of the ticketing business entirely. In 2021, when AEG announced that its facility management division ASM had struck a deal to make Ticketmaster its preferred ticketing partner, many assumed that meant the company was on the way to shutting down its own ticking platform, AXS Tickets.
Instead, ASM’s contract with the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster would pave the way for an expansion of AEG’s AXS, thanks to a provision in Ticketmaster’s exclusive agreement that granted AEG the right to use AXS to sell tickets to AEG-promoted shows at ASM venues, sources tell Billboard. AEG tours like Kane Brown, Elton John and Luke Combs could opt out of using Ticketmaster when playing ASM-client venues such as Soldier Field in Chicago, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis and Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz., and use AXS instead. This marked the largest carve-out in Ticketmaster’s exclusivity contract to date, potentially allowing hundreds of arenas, stadiums and performing arts centers to use AXS for the first time, like the new Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas — the highest grossing stadium on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Boxscore chart.
The provision was a sort of double victory for AEG, Live Nation’s leading competitor: The company was able to leverage its control over 350 ASM venues to get those clients large payouts for re-signing with Ticketmaster without forsaking its own ticketing service. AEG officials had also hoped this might mark the beginning of a more open ticketing ecosystem away from the sorts of exclusive deals that have helped Ticketmaster gain such dominance in the space. But less than two years later, AEG and Live Nation find themselves at odds, divided over the handling of Swift’s The Eras Tour.
AEG is now refusing to join a coalition of music companies supporting Live Nation’s Fair Ticketing campaign, a piece of proposed anti-scalper legislation born out of the bot attack on Ticketmaster’s Nov. 15 presale for Swift’s tour. While Universal Music Group, Red Light Management, Irving and Jeffrey Azoff, and all four major talent agencies are backing the FAIR Ticketing reforms to ban scalping practices like “speculative” ticket selling and mandating all-in pricing across all ticketing marketplaces nationally, AEG has been taking a different approach to what they see as some of ticketing’s biggest problems. Sources tell Billboard that AEG executives have been quietly lobbying the Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive ticketing contracts to lock up the ticket market as a possible violation of its consent decree governing its merger with Live Nation in 2010. AEG leadership is also lobbying politicians to include restrictions on such exclusive ticketing practices in new legislation that could be introduced as soon as this week.
Sources say Live Nation executives have been careful not to engage with AEG publicly about its exclusivity agreements. Privately, they have accused AEG of trying to have it both ways, accepting the money that comes with exclusive ticketing contracts, while trying to expand AXS ticketing beyond the ASM deal into all NFL stadiums ticketed by Ticketmaster.
“This is a bad look for them,” one source at Ticketmaster tells Billboard.
Since Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 and AEG launched its own ticketing platform in 2012, both companies have found they can earn more from the concerts they promote if they also control the ticketing, collecting more fees for themselves, while keeping data generated by the concert in house. The additional revenue for a promoter like AEG could be substantial, especially for an artist like Swift, who sold a total of 2.4 million tickets for The Eras Tour.
With Swift’s tour, sources say AXS was expecting to handle some of the ticketing under the ASM-Ticketmaster provision, since AEG was a co-promoter with partner Messina Touring Group. ASM managed five stadiums, representing 12 shows on the 52-date trek, and sources say AXS officials were hoping its ties to the tour could lead to it getting some, if not all of the tour. Except that Ticketmaster executives said their exclusive contracts with more than a dozen NFL teams (and the venues they own) superseded AXS’ claim. Under that reading of the deal, two of the 12 ASM dates — a pair of concerts at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. — would be ticketed by SeatGeek under its exclusive deal with the Arizona Cardinals. Making matters worse, two of ASM’s management clients decided to partner with Ticketmaster for the sale.
Down to just five shows at two stadiums, AEG dropped the matter. According to a source, AEG executives have since spoken with the Department of Justice, encouraging them to look at Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive contracts as anti-competitive.
Relations only worsened in the days following The Eras Tour presale. After the fiasco, Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei appeared on CNBC to defend Ticketmaster and cited the company’s arrangement with AEG in response to claims of monopolistic behavior. “AEG, who is the promoter for Taylor Swift, chose to use us because, in reality, we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world,” he said. “Even our competitors want to come on our platform.” AEG leadership was quick to respond with a statement, saying the promoter had no choice but to use Ticketmaster. “Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on The Eras Tour required us to ticket through their system,” an AEG spokesperson said. “We didn’t have a choice.”
AEG hopes its private lobbying of politicians and anti-trust officials will lead to regulatory change that could include abolishing exclusive ticketing contracts in the United States and ultimately move toward an industry more similar to Europe, where promoters generally don’t sign exclusive ticketing deals and work with multiple partners to sell tickets.
Despite the disagreement, the ASM-Ticketmaster deal remains in place, and AEG officials have had success convincing buildings like the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Quicken Home Arena in Cleveland to avoid exclusive ticketing agreements and remain open to multiple systems.
Live Nation and AEG declined to comment for this story.