Touring
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In December, Barclays Center and BSE Global chief executive Sam Zussman arranged a meeting with officials at SeatGeek and offered the ticketing company an ultimatum: Either terminate the seven-year contract they signed with his predecessor, John Abbamondi, the year before, or else Zussman would publicize SeatGeek’s tech failures as they happened, multiple sources tell Billboard.
SeatGeek quietly complied and the ticketing company’s third NBA contract would come to an end, losing one of New York’s most popular venues. Starting this month, all new concerts at the arena are now ticketed by the team’s previous ticketing provider, Live Nation’s Ticketmaster — the world’s biggest ticketing service — under a deal term that runs for three to five years, according to sources familiar with the situation.
“The Barclays Center team met with our execs to figure out a way to amend the contract which would offer us the ability to continue ticketing the teams, but not third party events,” a SeatGeek spokesperson told Billboard in a statement. “Several months later we offered Barclays the opportunity to simply end the agreement, in consultation with our other clients, on good terms.”
A separate statement from Barclays Center confirmed that BSE Global and SeatGeek’s partnership would “wind down” beginning with the New York Liberty’s 2023 season in May. “SeatGeek provided our fans with a first-class gameday ticketing experience,” the statement reads, “and we’re appreciative of the time and energy they put into our work together.”
“They Just Aren’t Designed for High-Demand Ticket Sales”
A Barclays Center representative would not comment on the reason behind the arena’s dramatic turn face, or why Zussman had been frustrated with SeatGeek’s fulfillment of its contract — most ticketing agreements have clearly defined “service level agreements” governing response expediency and site uptime — but an incident from October 2021 provides insight into the issues SeatGeek may have been struggling to rectify.
Booking agents Jared Arfa and Marsha Vlasic at Artist Group International whose agency represents New York indie rock icons The Strokes, claim SeatGeek mishandled an October 2021 presale that cost the group several hundred thousand dollars. That concert, originally scheduled for Dec. 31, 2021, was postponed to April 2022 due to concerns over the omicron COVID-19 variant and ended up selling 13,548 tickets and grossing $1.57 million. That total was 2,000 tickets and $400,000 less than the band’s 2019 New Year’s Eve show at Barclays Center, which Arfa and Vlasic blame on SeatGeek’s user interface— not The Strokes’ popularity.
“They just aren’t designed for high-demand ticket sales, like concerts,” says Arfa, who describes SeatGeek as “a secondary ticketing company that dabbles in primary ticket sales” and struggled during large sales. “There’s things that we have become accustomed to in the music business that SeatGeek can’t do that as well.”
By contrast, says one prominent Brooklyn concert promoter familiar with both ticketing systems, “Ticketmaster has a ton of marketing power and reach in New York” through its huge email lists, search engine optimization and decades of work in the city. “For better or worse,” the booker adds, “Ticketmaster sells the most tickets in New York hands down.”
This wasn’t a one-time instance, either. Sources tell Billboard that concert promoters S2BN booked and then cancelled a Genesis 2022 tour date for Barclays Center due to issues with SeatGeek. The show, which was to be a surprise fourth New York date of the band’s Last Domino run (Genesis played two nights at Madison Square Garden and one at UBS Arena in Belmont), suffered from technical issues after going on sale and never came close to hitting the promoter’s sales goals.
The SeatGeek Deal Points
SeatGeek officials dispute the claims about problems with their system, telling Billboard in a lengthy statement, “Being the fastest growing tech company and a newer entrant to the primary ticketing space, SeatGeek is unencumbered by legacy technology, historical relationships, and outdated biases, allowing us to invest where the most impact can be felt.”
“In the last twelve months,” SeatGeek’s statement continues, “we’ve bolstered our entertainment team with key hires and have completely revamped our entertainment product offering, including making a number of fan-friendly strides in how we handle onsales, from utilizing state-of-the-art 3D view-from-seat imagery to providing ‘similar seat’ recommendations when multiple customers are vying for the same inventory.” The changes have resulted in “resounding appreciation from both AEG and Live Nation’s teams.”
Abbamondi signed the SeatGeek deal in 2021 with a $10 million signing package, sources say, that included cash, savings on the fees SeatGeek charged and a lucrative sponsorship agreement. The contract was seen as a means of helping reduce owner and Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai’s $50 million to $100 million annual losses operating the team and arena since he bought out majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov in 2019. Just seven months later, however, Tsai agreed to accept Abbamondi’s resignation, despite the executive signing a record number of sponsorship agreements for the Nets that brought in an additional $30 million in annual revenue.
For SeatGeek, one of the largest ticket resale services in North America, the Barclays Center deal marked a major win in the company’s move from secondary ticketing into the primary, direct-to-consumer ticket business. Partnering with venues for primary ticketing services also drives significant traffic to SeatGeek’s secondary marketplace. That’s because ticket buyers don’t generally know if they are buying tickets from the team or from a reseller, since all primary and secondary tickets are listed together without any differentiation. The company’s other clients include the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans and Cleveland Cavaliers, the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals, most of Major League Soccer and a growing number of Broadway theaters due to an alliance with Shubert Tickets.
Ticketmaster Regains Control
Ticketmaster has been under scrutiny this week, following a high-profile hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, examining competition in the ticketing industry and the company’s disastrous Nov. 15 ticket sale for Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras tour. SeatGeek chief executive Jack Groetzinger testified during the hearing that Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger should be unwound due to a monopolistic behavior, saying it “it stifles competition completely.” (He was not, however, asked about his company’s own outages selling tickets to five of the concert dates for which the company has exclusive deals — including one reported instance where it charged a woman’s credit 14 times for $9,000 in total.) With Barclays Center’s move back to Ticketmaster, and the opening of the UBS Arena in late 2021, Ticketmaster now tickets all four of New York’s major arenas.
Barclays Center’s switch is likely to be examined by the Department of Justice, which monitors Ticketmaster as part of a 13-year-old consent decree dating back to Live Nation’s 2010 merger with Ticketmaster. One area of inquiry will likely be the drop in the number of concerts brought to Barclays Center in 2022, compared to 2019, the last full year of concerts prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Six months after signing with SeatGeek, Barclays Center saw the number of especial events and concerts at the building drop 13% from 2019 to 2022. The number of Live Nation concerts at the building fell 23% compared while the revenue generated from those Live Nation 2022 shows — $14.6 million — was less than half of the $31 million Live Nation concerts generated at Barclays Center in 2019.
The precipitous drop in Live Nation content, if done to retaliate against the venue for signing with Ticketmaster, could be a serious violation of the consent decree and could be grounds for challenging the merger in court.
Billboard found that other major buildings experienced similar fluctuations, though, including Madison Square Garden, which saw its total show count from 2019 to 2022 drop 11%. Revenue from Live Nation touring shows dropped 20% during that same period, while the number of touring shows brought to the arena was only down 2%. The 02 Arena in London, Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and FTX Arena in Miami each also experienced double-digit event night declines at their venues in 2022 compared to 2019.
The arena shows that Live Nation did bring to Barclays Center were some of the company’s most popular tours, according to Boxscore data, including Kendrick Lamar ($3.7 million gross), My Chemical Romance ($4.4 million gross) and Arcade Fire ($1.3 million gross). Barclays Center was also likely impacted by the opening of the OVG-managed UBS Arena, which booked $50 million in shows in 2022. Often the opening of a new venue can temporarily affect older venues as touring shows line up to be among the first to play the new facility. Barclays Center was able to make up for much of the loss caused by the decrease in Live Nation shows with higher grossing events from other promoters. By doing so, executives were able to minimize the venue’s drop in revenue from 2022 to 2019 to a difference of only $2 million, according to Boxscore data. Among those were Elton John’s March 1-2 concerts that generated $4.9 million in sales and Tame Impala’s March 14-15 shows that generated $1.9 million in sales, both promoted by AEG Presents. As well, Bad Bunny’s March 19-20 dates from Latin promoter Henry Cardenas generated more than $7.9 million in sales.
Looking ahead to 2023, Barclays Center already has three of the year’s biggest shows on the books – Madonna, as well as Blink-182 and Bruce Springsteen. Blink and Springsteen are both Live Nation tours booked at the venue prior to the switch back to Ticketmaster.
Zayn has signed with UTA for representation across music, film and television, among other areas.
Currently at work on his fourth studio album, Zayn launched his career as a member of One Direction in 2010 before departing the group in 2015 to embark on a solo career. In 2016, he released his debut solo album, Mind of Mine, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. The album’s lead single, “Pillowtalk,” also topped the Billboard Hot 100 and has since been certified five-times platinum by the RIAA. He has garnered several accolades for his music throughout his career, including a Billboard Music Award, an American Music Award, an MTV VMA and two Brit Award nods.
Zayn’s catalog, which encompasses three studio albums (2018’s gold-certified Icarus Falls, 2021’s Nobody Is Listening and Mind of Mine), has earned 4.6 million on-demand official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Outside of music, Zayn has also ventured into the fashion world, having collaborated on capsule collections with the likes of Giuseppe Zanotti and Versus Versace while gracing the cover of numerous fashion publications including Vogue, GQ, ELLE UK, Highsnobiety, PAPER and The FADER. In 2017, he was named “Most Stylish Man” at the British GQ Men of the Year Awards.
Elsewhere, ZAYN has advocated for free school lunches for children living in poverty in the UK, penning an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Zayn is also represented by Nicola Carson at ZenKai Management and Taryn Zimmerman.
John Mayer is headed on the road — this time, with a twist. On Thursday (Jan. 26), the singer-songwriter announced an 19-date solo arena tour across North America in 2023 that will consist of him leaning heavily on his acoustic guitar for the series of performances.
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The trek will see the “Daughters” singer travel across cities in the United States and Canada. The tour begins on March 11 at Newark’s Prudential Center, and will make stops in Boston, New York, Toronto, Atlanta, Chicago and more before concluding on April 14 in Los Angeles at the Kia Forum. Lizzy McAlpine and Alec Benjamin will support Mayer on the tour, alongside one more special guest who has yet to be announced.
Mayer spoke about what the tour means to him in an Instagram post that featured the trek’s official poster — a picture of him sitting on stool while holding an acoustic guitar.
“I began my career on stage with only a guitar and a microphone. A lot has changed since then, but I knew one day I’d feel it in my heart to do an entire run of shows on my own again, just like those early days,” he shared. “It took a couple of decades, but I feel it now. I’ll be playing old songs. Newer songs. Songs you haven’t heard yet that I’ll be road testing – all on acoustic, electric, and piano.”
As for the finer details, such as when fans can buy tickets, Mayer added: “Tickets go on sale to the public Friday, Feb. 3. at 9 a.m. local time. Presales start Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 9 a.m. local time and run through Thursday, Feb. 2, at 10 p.m. Sign up to access presale tickets now at johnmayer.com.” Tickets will be sold via seated.
See Mayer’s post and the concert dates for the tour, below.
Here are the tour dates:
Saturday, March 11 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
Monday, March 13 Boston, MA TD Garden
Wednesday, March 15 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Saturday, March 18 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
Monday, March 20 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena
Wednesday, March 22 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
Friday, March 24 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
Saturday, March 25 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
Monday, March 27 Atlanta, GA State Farm Arena
Wednesday, March 29 St. Louis, MO Enterprise Center
Friday, March 31 Chicago, IL United Center
Saturday, April 1 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
Monday, April 3 Denver, CO Ball Arena
Wednesday, April 5 Phoenix, AZ Footprint Center
Thursday, April 6 Palm Desert, CA Acrisure Arena
Saturday, April 8 Sacramento, CA Golden 1 Center
Monday, April 10 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Tuesday, April 11 Seattle, WA Climate Pledge Arena
Friday, April 14 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum
Another December Boxscore report, another triumph for Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Since Billboard launched its monthly touring recap in February 2019, TSO has made a habit of topping each December’s Top Tours chart, cranking up its annual seasonal routing to the max. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Trans-Siberian Orchestra grossed $50.9 million and sold 691,000 tickets over 71 shows in the 31-day period.
Peaking at four shows per day, TSO employs two ensembles. One travels the eastern half of the U.S. and the other covers the western half, each playing matinee and primetime concerts in some markets.
The band hit a high point on Dec. 23, with two shows at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio ($1.7 million) and two at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. ($1.9 million), totaling $3.6 million in one day from four concerts. It was one of five days in December that it grossed more than $3 million.
TSO’s entire 2022 haul generated $66.5 million in gross revenues from 914,000 tickets sold – with 77% of that sum coming from December dates alone. That’s the second-highest grossing tour in the band’s history, narrowly missing 2019’s pre-pandemic $66.8 million. Still, this was its biggest December yet, at $50.9 million, eclipsing 2019’s $46.8 million.
In 2021, TSO played 98 shows – equal to 2022’s run – but the Omicron wave slowed ticket sales, dipping to $42 million in December, and $54.6 million for the entire run.
In all, Trans-Siberian Orchestra has grossed $734.1 million and sold 14.1 million tickets over 1,789 shows. The modestly priced (and mostly U.S.-based) family show hovers around the top 20 grossing acts in Boxscore history, but is within the top 10 according to tickets sold, slightly less than Coldplay’s 14.6 million, but moving past Bon Jovi’s 13.3 million.
With its annual trip to the summit, TSO’s third monthly Boxscore win puts the act in rare company. Since the launch of Top Tours in February 2019, only Elton John (six) and Bad Bunny (four) have spent more time at No. 1, while The Rolling Stones match with three months of its own. Considering John and Bad Bunny dominated the previous four months, it hasn’t been since July that an act scored its first Top Tours victory, when Coldplay ruled with $66.7 million.
And while John, the Stones and Coldplay have each disappeared for now, Bad Bunny remains a factor on the December charts, at No. 3 on Top Tours and at No. 1 on Top Boxscores. He crowns the latter chart with his two shows at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey, Mexico. That double-header earned $17.1 million on Dec. 3-4, pushing World’s Hottest Tour to a final gross of $314.1 million.
In December, Billboard named Bad Bunny the top touring act of 2022 based on the combined activity of the spring’s El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo and World’s Hottest Tour, accumulating $373.5 million in the tracking period of Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022. But with additional grosses in November and December, he finished the year with $434.9 million, the biggest calendar-year gross for an artist in Boxscore history.
In between TSO and Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee finished the year at No. 2 on Top Tours, hitting a new peak after spending October and November at No. 3. His December haul began with three shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol (after playing two shows at the venue in November) and stretched through a final American run, ending with two shows at Miami’s FTX Arena.
Over 15 shows, he earned $37.5 million, pushing his farewell tour’s total to $197.8 million. That makes it the second-biggest tour by a Spanish-speaking act, following, who else, Bad Bunny and his own fall ’22 tour.
Daddy Yankee follows Bad Bunny, again, by hitting No. 2 on Top Boxscores with those three Foro Sol shows. The entire five-night run grossed $23.6 million, split between $9.8 million on Nov. 29-30, and $13.8 million on Dec. 2-4.
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Among the highest grossing venues of the month, a combination of holiday-themed concerts and sporting events make it the No. 1 on the ranking among venues with a capacity of 15,001+. In most months, the venue atop that chart is also the No. 1 venue among rooms of any size, given the high capacity. But, just as TSO annually shoots to No. 1, December’s crown is virtually reserved for New York’s 5,900-cap Radio City Music Hall.
Home of the Christmas Spectacular starring The Radio City Rockettes, RCMH grossed $76.7 million across 130 shows (averaging more than four performances per day), trampling the arena’s $22 million take. In all, between Nov. 18 and Jan. 2, the Rockettes show brought in $96.9 million and sold 945,000 tickets. If counted as a musical touring act, it would quite easily rule the Top Tours and Top Boxscores charts.
Though not a touring act per se, there are two Jingle Ball appearances on Top Boxscores, another seasonal regular. Of six reported Jingle Ball events, totaling $8.7 million, highlights are New York’s show at Madison Square Garden ($3.5 million; 18,178 tickets) and London’s two-night event at the O2 Arena ($2.5 million; 27,080 tickets).
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LONDON — Madison Square Garden’s plan for a “next generation” 21,500-capacity concert venue in London won another key endorsement this week when a planning committee approved the development, despite strong objections from residents and rival live events company AEG.
On Tuesday, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) granted MSG a 25-year advertising license subject to a five-year review. Now, London Mayor Sadiq Khan needs to approve the project — called MSG Sphere London — before work can begin. In rare instances, government ministers can also intervene and suspend planning applications.
New York-based Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) first submitted plans for the venue in March of 2019. Since then, the company has encountered sustained opposition from councilors and residents who are concerned it will blight the area with noise and light pollution.
MSG is proposing to build the arena on a five-acre plot of land in Stratford, East London, adjacent to the Olympic Park and would be located just five miles away from the 20,000-capacity The O2 arena, the U.K.’s top grossing venue, which is operated by AEG.
The MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, under construction.
Courtesy Photo
The design of the MSG Sphere London mirrors the spherical crystal ball design of the MSG Sphere at The Venetian in Las Vegas — due to open later this year at a cost of $1.8 billion — and measures 90 meters (295 feet) tall by 120 meters (394 feet) wide. Its exterior will be covered in a programmable skin of more than one million LED lights, which will primarily be used for showing videos and advertising.
The LLDC had provisionally approved the venue last March, but the committee still needed to sign off on several aspects of the planning process, including MSG’s strategy for managing the Sphere’s controversial advertising display.
The proposed arena still doesn’t have a price tag, and MSG said in its most-recent quarterly earnings, filed in November, that there is no “definitive timeline” for its construction.
Opponents of the venue are calling on Khan to block the development. AEG says it was “dismayed” by the committee’s decision to give MSG Sphere London the go ahead.
“We call on the Mayor of London to uphold his election promise to do what’s best for Londoners, including the residents of [the London Borough of] Newham who are having this huge development forced on them, by directing refusal of the planning application,” AEG says in a statement.
AEG says MSG Sphere London’s LED illuminated exterior “was conceived for the heart of Las Vegas” and is “at a wholly unprecedented scale for London and totally out of keeping with the surrounding area.”
Campaign group StopMSGSphere, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, and several local councilors have urged the Khan to quash the development, which would be MSG’s first venue outside of the United States.
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for MSG — whose portfolio includes New York’s Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the Forum in California — said the company ”remains committed to bringing MSG Sphere to London” and promised the venue would create “thousands of jobs and [generate] billions of pounds for the local, London and U.K. economy.”
MSG says it will provide blackout blinds to homes located within 150 meters (492 feet) of the new London arena and will run a telephone line for residents to register any complaints.
Should it get the go ahead, MSG Sphere London will be one of the U.K.’s biggest indoor concert venues with a scalable capacity of up to 17,500 seated, or 21,500 with a mixture of seated and standing. That exceeds the U.K.’s two biggest existing arenas, London’s The O2, which has a maximum capacity of 20,000, and Manchester’s AO Arena, which holds up to 21,000 people.
Construction is currently underway in Manchester on what will be the U.K.’s biggest indoor music venue, the 23,500-capacity Co-op Live being developed by the Oak View Group, which counts Harry Styles as an investor. It is set to open in December.
Madison Square Garden Entertainment chief executive James Dolan defended the use of facial recognition technology to bar entry to his company’s namesake venue to a handful of individuals on Thursday. In a televised interview on FOX 5 New York, Dolan also said he’s considering shutting down alcohol sales for a night at the Garden in response to lawmakers’ calls for the venue’s liquor license.
“Instead (of serving alcohol), where we serve liquor, we are going to put one of these up, which says, ‘If you would like to drink again, please call Sharif Kabir, chief executive officer’ … and tell him to stick to his knitting,” Dolan said, holding up a poster with the picture of the head of New York’s state liquor authority.
In defense of the Garden’s policy barring entry to a group of lawyers who work for a firm currently engaged in legal matters against Dolan’s company, he said, “If you’re suing us, we’re just asking you please don’t come until you’re done with your argument with us, and yes we’re using facial recognition to enforce that.”
MSG has been under scrutiny for blocking entry to the lawyers, and in recent weeks, some New York legislators have called for an investigation into whether the policy is in violation of its liquor license. On Wednesday, the New York State Attorney General Letitia James requested the company disclose how they are using the technology, citing media reports that about 90 law firms and thousands of lawyers are affected by the policy.
Lawmakers including New York State Senator Liz Kruger expressed concerns that MSG appears to be using the technology in “discriminatory and retaliatory” ways, and New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal introduced a bill this week that would ammend an existing state law to add “sporting events” to the list of public entertainment places that cannot bar entry to people with valid tickets.
Dolan was steadfast in his defense of the ban and the use of facial recognition technology at his venues, which also include Radio City Music Hall and The Sphere, currently under construction in Las Vegas.
Dolan called the proposed bill illegal, and when asked if his company would back down in enforcing these policies, he said, “Not at all.”
“The Garden has to defend itself,” he said.
In a letter sent yesterday, NY AG James urged MSG Entertainment to reverse the policy.
“MSG Entertainment cannot fight their legal battles in their own arenas,” James said in a statement included in a press release from her office on the matter. “Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall are world-renowned venues and should treat all patrons who purchased tickets with fairness and respect. Anyone with a ticket to an event should not be concerned that they may be wrongfully denied entry based on their appearance.”
While use of facial recognition technology is legal in the state of New York, and MSG discloses it uses the technology on notices posted outside its venues, individuals suing MSGE argue the venues’ use goes beyond what is legally allowed. The New York AG’s office requested a response justifying the policy and detailing attempts to abide by the laws outlawing discrimination and retaliation by Feb. 13.
Could Taylor Swift be responsible for breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster?
For anyone watching the three-hour U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, aside from frequent quotes of her lyrics, the connection between the pop star and the politicians’ probe is probably starting to feel tangential. And despite Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold’s efforts to shift blame for Swift’s disastrous (yet record-breaking) ticket sale from Ticketmaster to scalpers and bots, most everyone else involved was focused on the m-word — monopoly.
The senators’ line of thinking is that if the Live Nation-owned platform didn’t have such market dominance (around 80% of large venues in the U.S. have exclusive Ticketmaster deals), greater competition would force the company to innovate and improve its services — potentially avoiding the kinds of issues that spoiled the Swift sale last November. But while disruptions to Swift’s highly anticipated North American Eras tour caused such a commotion that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) felt compelled to call this hearing, by Tuesday it seemed only Berchtold wanted to explore the immediate problems that brought down the sale.
Instead, the lawmakers see taking on Ticketmaster as a winning political issue and an opportunity to reach constituents who have long complained about the ticketing giant. During the hearing, for example, Klobuchar railed against high ticket prices, saying, “To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition.” But would competition in ticketing actually drive down ticket prices when it’s the artists who set the price, as Berchtold said, and not Ticketmaster?
For the senators, it hardly matters. Perception is reality and poor perception could lead to serious issues for Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Whether or not the companies’ dominance is a problem in the market, Ticketmaster is widely so despised that it has clearly become an easy target for rare bipartisan political action propelled by incredible public support.
About an hour into the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) laid out a potential path for Democrats in the Senate, potentially with support from Republicans, to force Live Nation into divesting its holdings in Ticketmaster.
Since merging in 2010, the combined companies have been operating under a consent decree, promising not to leverage Live Nation’s touring content in a way that would punish venues for not signing up for Ticketmaster’s services. A Department of Justice intervention, in which the assistant U.S. attorney for antitrust goes to a federal judge with evidence “of monopolistic and predatory abuses,” Blumenthal said, would be the most obvious path toward an intervention forcing Live Nation to divest Ticketmaster. There’s recent precedent for this, too. In 2019, the DOJ punished Live Nation for the six violations by extending the term of the decree five years and forcing the company to pay the reimbursement of millions in investigatory and litigation costs. The DOJ also appointed an independent monitor and required Live Nation to install an internal antitrust compliance officer. If the DOJ caught Live Nation violating the decree again, the government would have a strong case to take before the government showing that the consent decree wasn’t effective and that the merger would have to be unwound.
Hinting that DOJ anti-trust attorneys appointed by Biden are once conducting another review of the company’s compliance with the consent decree, Blumental warned that any violations found during the current review would be grounds for splitting the company in two.
“If the Department of Justice uncovers violations of the consent decree,” Blumental said, “unwinding the merger ought to be on the table.”
Other senators during the committee threatened to take legislative action if the DOJ didn’t do something about Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s combined strength. Government witness Kathleen Bradish, vp for legal advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute, however, testified that any legislative remedy — like legislation to enhance and clarify U.S. antitrust laws and a regulatory framework to clean up the mostly unregulated ticketing market — would have to be coupled with strong antitrust enforcement action through existing antitrust law in order to break up the company.
Even if there is the political will to unwind Live Nation and Ticketmaster, that outcome is likely still a long shot. Still, even if the companies survive the DOJ probe and can eventually end the consent decree, it’s difficult to see how they repair their image going forward. To most senators on the panel, the company is an illegal monopoly openly operating in defiance of the world’s most powerful legislative bodies. And to most aggrieved fans, it’s screwing up their ticket buying and gouging them to see their favorite acts.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has sent a letter asking Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE) to explain its reported use of facial recognition technology to bar individuals involved in litigation against the company from its venues, the Attorney General’s office said Wednesday (Jan. 25).
The letter cites reports that approximately 90 law firms comprising thousands of lawyers are affected by a policy that MSG Entertainment allegedly put in place, in which the facial recognition tech has been used to identify and bar attorneys with legitimate tickets from venues including MSG and Radio City Music Hall. The letter says the office has “concerns that the Policy may violate the New York Civil Rights Law and other city, state, and federal laws prohibiting discrimination and retaliation for engaging in protected activity.” The letter also says that the office is concerned that such practices could run afoul of laws prohibiting retaliation and that the technology “may be plagued with biases and false positives against people of color and women.”
“MSG Entertainment cannot fight their legal battles in their own arenas,” James said in a statement included in a press release from her office on the matter. “Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall are world-renowned venues and should treat all patrons who purchased tickets with fairness and respect. Anyone with a ticket to an event should not be concerned that they may be wrongfully denied entry based on their appearance, and we’re urging MSG Entertainment to reverse this policy.”
In a statement sent to Billboard, an MSG spokesperson responded to the letter, saying, “To be clear, our policy does not unlawfully prohibit anyone from entering our venues and it is not our intent to dissuade attorneys from representing plaintiffs in litigation against us. We are merely excluding a small percentage of lawyers only during active litigation. Most importantly, to even suggest anyone is being excluded based on the protected classes identified in state and federal civil rights laws is ludicrous. Our policy has never applied to attorneys representing plaintiffs who allege sexual harassment or employment discrimination.”
In the past few months, the New York Times has reported that MSG Entertainment, owned by James Dolan, has begun using facial recognition software to identify a list of attorneys representing clients that are involved in litigation against the company, and is barring not just those lawyers, but all lawyers from their respective firms, from attending concerts or other events at its venues, which include MSG, Radio City, the Hulu Theater, the Beacon Theatre and others. Events at which the policy has allegedly been utilized include games involving the NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers, both of which Dolan also owns.
The use of facial recognition technology is legal in the state of New York, though some lawyers who have sued the company claim that using it to bar a list of attorneys with open litigation against MSGE is not. The public outcry has caught the attention of the Attorney General, who is requesting a response both justifying the policy and detailing attempts to abide by the laws outlawing discrimination and retaliation by Feb. 13.
Inspired by the testimony of the band Lawrence and the struggles it faced as an independent act during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on Ticketmaster, Ineffable Music Group CEO Thomas Cussins decided it was time to take action.
“After about an hour watching the hearing, I grabbed the phone and started calling the venues we owned and operated,” says Cussins. His message to on-the-ground managers at California venues including The Catalyst and the Atrium at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, the Ventura Music Hall in Ventura and Cornerstone in Berkeley: no more merch fees for bands.
Effective immediately, all 10 venues owned and/or operated by Ineffable Live — also including the Golden State Theatre in Monterey, Calif.; Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Felton Music Hall in Felton, Calif.; the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, Calif.; Arcata Theatre Lounge in Arcata, Calif.; and the Chicken Box in Nantucket, Massachusetts — will no longer collect a 20% venue cut from touring artists selling their merchandise at Ineffable venues.
The decision will cost the company “several hundred thousand” per year in revenue, Cussins estimates. but “hopes to make it up via a healthier concert ecosystem,” he adds, noting that the merch fee that venues charge artists is often the one thing touring bands say they most want to see changed about the club and theater circuit.
When bands go on tour, their revenue streams are almost exclusively a share of ticket sale revenue and band merchandise sales. In addition, expenses for travel, production and health insurance have increased significantly, as have the costs associated with printing and shipping t-shirts and other merchandise.
On a good night, an independent touring band with a loyal fan base can sell $5,000 to $10,000 in merch at a 500-cap show. Eliminating the venue fee can save some groups $1,000 to $2,000 per night, Cussins says. That can make a big difference in a business where the margins in merchandise are vital to the economic feasibility of touring. The more diverse a band’s income streams are, Cussins says, the less reliant they’ll be on tour guarantees.
“We are on the ground and hearing from artists every day,” says Cussins. “We are seeing how much the costs of everything have gone up — from buses to hotels to flights. So even though the club business is a marginal business, any action we can take to help to insure a healthy, vibrant concert ecosystem is important. This industry only works if artists of all levels are able to afford to tour. When artists are able to tour sustainably and fans can afford to buy a t-shirt because the all-in ticket price is reasonable, everyone wins.”
Ineffable head talent buyer Casey Smith adds, “We’ve been able to make our live business work even with increased expenses by having a number of venues and being able to create routes for artists, offering them a number of shows in secondary and college markets between their big city plays. Since we’ve made it work for ourselves, we want it to work for the artists as well. This move is fully aligned with Ineffable’s independent spirit, and in hearing the needs of independent artists, we believe it’s important to put them first.”
CAA has signed Mexican pop group RBD for worldwide representation in all areas, Billboard has learned. Specifically, the L.A.-based agency will represent the band — now comprised of Anahí, Christian Chavez, Dulce María, Christopher von Uckermann and Maite Perroni — in areas such as acting, brand consulting, touring, podcasting and fashion/beauty.
News of the signing comes on the heels of RBD’s highly-anticipated announcement of a reunion that includes a 26-date global Soy Rebelde Tour with stops in Mexico, U.S. and Brazil. The stint will mark the group’s first time hitting the stage together since disbanding in December 2008 after their last show in Madrid.
The Live Nation-produced trek will kick off in El Paso, Texas, at the Sun Bowl Stadium on Aug. 25 and will make stops in key U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. When RBD last toured, in total it grossed $72.5 million and sold over 1.5 million tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
“It’s a new era that makes us really excited and it’s a new opportunity to share the stage once again and feel a unique energy,” Perroni previously told Billboard. “There’re cycles in life and each one of us had to focus on our careers as actors and musicians and that meant we had to give those projects time, energy and a lot of dedication. It also allowed each one of us to grow professionally and personally. Now, the time [for the reunion] is perfect because we’re now more conscious, more mature, we’ll enjoy it from a different perspective now as adults.”
According to CAA, the group will also release new music in the spring. On the Billboardcharts, RBD has a total of seven entries on the Billboard 200 chart including Rebelde, Celestial and Nuestro Amor, and eight entries on Top Latin Albums with six hitting the top 10. Over on Hot Latin Songs, the band has 10 total entries and out of those, five hit top 10.
RBD is managed by Guillermo Rosas, who’s also executive producing the Soy Rebelde Tour.