Overview:
The author and Hold Steady keyboardist spoke at a hearing about the Live Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case.
Among the many injustices we’ve been dealing with in this problematic age is the controlling monopoly that the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster together holds on event ticket sales in the US. Last week Congress held a hearing to address the antitrust case, and the panel of industry experts brought in to testify included Bard College professor, writer, and musician Franz Nicolay.
“[L]ive music hasn’t been a healthy competitive market,” Nicolay, a member of indie rockers the Hold Steady and the author of 2024’s Band People, said during the hearing, which was convened by Democrats Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (Maryland). “Instead, a vertically integrated corporation that controls venues and tour promotion and ticketing and artist management, to the almost total control of many music markets, is, to a comical degree, the epitome of the kind of monopolistic power that antitrust law was created to address.”
“We, as artists, simply don’t have the range of city-to-city, venue-to-venue choices that would constitute a healthy ecosystem,” explained Nicolay further. “[N]on-Live Nation venues are consolidated or forced out of business, as non-Ticketmaster options are gobbled up or fall victim to venue exclusivity contracts, or as conditions for fans and artists are degraded as independent venues feel pressured to raise fees and drink prices, and adopt other extractive Live Nation policies to stay afloat. We’re in solidarity with independent venues and promoters…It’s a problem of affordability, in an economic climate which, through drastically increasing gas prices, airfare, postage and international shipping fees for merchandise, and hardening borders, is making the touring on which our livings depend increasingly unaffordable for musicians. And that increased overhead,…has a corresponding effect on affordability and access for fans.”
In 2024, under President Biden, the Department of Justice and a coalition of states sued Live Nation, alleging the unfairness of its practices in tandem with Ticketmaster. The suit continued into this second term of Trump, who had seen from Live Nation/Ticketmaster a substantial donation to his reelection campaign; several of his allies stayed on during Biden’s term to lobby on the partnership’s behalf. In May of 2025, Trump confidant and current Kennedy Center president Richard Grennell joined Live Nation’s board.
Last March, the DOJ and Live Nation reached a tentative settlement requiring Live Nation to create a $280 million settlement fund for participating states; divest from 13 of its exclusive booking agreements with amphitheaters and limit fees at 15 percent of their face value; and open parts of its platform to other companies.
Following the announcement of the settlement it was confirmed that Live Nation’s CEO and other corporate executives had met with senior Trump officials to work out the settlement as the trial was getting underway—a meeting that had been kept secret from the DOJ antitrust lawyers who were litigating the case. Now the settlement is before US District Judge Arun Subramanian.
“The Trump Administration’s anti-consumer settlement with Live Nation simply solidified a system already stacked against fans, venues, and artists,” said Blumenthal.
You can watch the entire May 18 Congressional here (Nicolay’s testimony is at 55:00):
