How Australia’s music cartels are driving up the cost of live shows

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Australia’s contention watchdog has fixed the strongest denotation yet that it has the giants of the euphony manufacture successful its sights, arsenic the attraction of ownership is starring fans to wage up to 20 per cent much than they ought to for unrecorded events.

While declining to uncover details, Scott Gregson, main enforcement of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said the regulator was keeping a adjacent oculus connected the antitrust lawsuit launched against Live Nation by the US Department of Justice successful April.

Festivalgoers astatine Splendour successful the Grass successful 2023.

“We bash spot immoderate consistency successful behaviours that are portion of that DOJ probe and enactment with the benignant of things we perceive successful Australia,” Gregson told an enquiry into the challenges and opportunities facing Australian unrecorded euphony successful Canberra.

“We don’t remark connected matters that mightiness beryllium nether investigation, but if your question is, bash we person akin issues, bash we look, are we watching the DOJ action, yes is the reply to each of those.”

Live Nation is the world’s largest euphony promoter and pioneered the “360-degree model” done which it extracts gross from each facet of the show assemblage via its interests successful events, creator management, venues, ticketing and merchandise. Its revenues successful 2023 totalled $US22.7 billion.

In Australia, the institution has acquired smaller promoters, festivals (including Falls and Splendour successful the Grass, some of which were cancelled this year), and venues. It besides has exclusive contracts with respective non-owned venues done its subsidiary Ticketmaster.

It is not unsocial successful having embraced vertical integration, with large rival TEG Dainty – which is simply a large shareholder successful Laneway Festival and proprietor of Ticketek – having pursued a akin strategy locally and internationally.

But that strategy is perchance astatine likelihood with the pro-competition and pro-consumer remit of the ACCC.

“We’re acquainted with concerns astir attraction and vertical integration successful the market, successful peculiar booking, promotion, ticketing and venue lawsuit sectors,” Gregson said. “We’re alert of concerns of restrictions that mightiness apply, for illustration [that] venue festival operators mightiness enforce connected artists. We’re acquainted with issues that whitethorn originate successful transportation with markets for ticketing oregon promotions and exclusivity arrangements.

“When you commencement to person highly concentrated markets … it flows done successful presumption of prime and prices for consumers … and that’s wherever you’ve got to past look astatine misuse of marketplace power.

“Where those restrictions are successful place, they spell to lessening of competition, which inevitably restricts choice, increases prices [and] leads to inefficient outcomes.”

The ACCC’s wide manager Richard Fleming, besides speaking astatine the inquiry, likened the Australian marketplace to a cartel situation, with a nonstop inflationary interaction for consumers.

“It ranges betwixt 10 to 20 per cent, is mostly the regularisation of thumb,” helium said. “[If] you’ve got smaller artists trying to negociate with those larger venues and larger summons providers, and immoderate of those summons providers supply exclusive arrangements to venues for sometimes aggregate years, I deliberation that each leads to the restrictions that we’re talking about.”