A Vermont bill meant to help music fans could do the opposite – VTDigger

This commentary is by David Balto, an antitrust commentator and a former assistant director for policy and evaluation in the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Supporting small businesses over big companies is in Vermonters’ DNA. The Green Mountain State was the first state to ban roadside billboards, and our tax code is written to support mom-and-pop shops over large corporations. Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonald’s or a Starbucks. So why, days after a federal jury sided with Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark and more than 30 other states, ruling that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation were operating an illegal monopoly, is the state Legislature advancing a policy that will help this corporation invade our state while undercutting our attorney general’s antitrust suit?

Live Nation, which owns and operates some of the largest music venues across the country, and Ticketmaster, which controls roughly 80% of the country’s initial ticket sales, merged in 2010. Since then, ticket prices are up 120%. 

Since the merger, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has used tactics like the “velvet hammer” — withholding concerts from venues they do not control or work with — to consolidate power. Then they force fans to pay sky-high fees, from marking up parking passes to forcing venues to only sell water from a brand Live Nation owns. In internal messages, employees even bragged about how they “gouge” fans and joked they were “robbing them blind.” 

It’s no surprise that, after a decade and a half of antitrust violations, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly made $25 billion last year. 

Now, the company, which doesn’t own any venues in Vermont, appears poised to establish a foothold in the Green Mountain State with the help of a well-intentioned but poorly executed bill working its way through Montpelier.

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would cap the price of event tickets being resold at no more than 10% above face value. The measure was recently approved by the House and is currently moving through the Senate. 

On its face, the idea sounds appealing: Cracking down on excessive markups should be a win for fans. But the fact that Live Nation-Ticketmaster, which was just found to be operating an illegal monopoly that harmed fans, venues and artists, has supported price caps like those proposed in H.512 in Washington, D.C., California, New York, Minnesota and Ontario should give Vermonters pause.

This billion-dollar corporation doesn’t support ticket resale price caps because it’s good for fans. The company advocates for this policy because the caps don’t apply to “primary” ticket sales: the original point of sale, of which Ticketmaster controls 80%. Instead, the price caps would only apply to resale marketplaces — hitting the only companies that compete with the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly.

Less competition means more power and higher profits for Live Nation-Ticketmaster.

In most states, price caps would consolidate Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s control and allow it to raise ticket prices even further. In Vermont, H.512 may be the final ingredient it needs to enter the state, and, to quote its executives, “boil the frog” — using monopoly power to slowly squeeze out our independent music venues.

With this legislation moving through the Statehouse, Live Nation-Ticketmaster is already establishing a foothold in the Green Mountain State. Earlier this month, it announced a partnership with CashorTrade, a Vermont-based ticketing platform.  

But Live Nation-Ticketmaster doesn’t even need to operate in our state to benefit if Vermont passes this law. If Vermont, which prides itself on pushing back against corporate power, enacts resale price caps, we hand Live Nation-Ticketmaster a powerful talking point to advance its power grab in additional states. We become a critical data point; an example of what “good policy” looks like.

H.512 includes some real, positive policies that help venues and consumers, but the price cap provision that came along for the ride squarely benefits Live Nation-Ticketmaster. Vermont can, and should, have the former without the latter.

Vermont needs to stand up to this corporate bully. If any state knows how to, it’s this one.