After a chaotic week following the Justice Division’s mid-trial settlement with Reside Nation-Ticketmaster, the antitrust trial picked again up surprisingly easily on Monday — this time, with dozens of states main the case.
This isn’t the result the states initially needed. Out of issues about with the ability to successfully take over the case and concern that the jury could be prejudiced by the shakeup, they requested a mistrial, which might have restarted the court docket battle at an unknown future date. However an irritated Choose Arun Subramanian appeared more likely to deny the request, and as soon as the states discovered find out how to retain the DOJ’s professional witness and had been capable of shortly rent up, they withdrew their mistrial movement. After the brand new faces had been launched, the trial restarted from roughly the place it left off greater than every week in the past, with testimony that included how Reside Nation deployed its “velvet hammer” towards rivals.
Subramanian welcomed the jurors again from their “spring break” and requested if that they had learn or encountered any information in regards to the case after they had been out, which is forbidden by the jury directions. They both shook their heads or remained silent. He reminded the jurors that the US had resolved its claims, as had a handful of states, however the remainder had been continuing to trial. Jurors shouldn’t make any inferences from the very fact these events are now not within the case, he stated.
With the DOJ out of the image, the legal professionals who questioned early witnesses had been gone, changed by a brand new workforce co-led by Jonathan Hatch, an legal professional from the New York AG’s workplace, and Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn, who represented school athletes within the landmark Supreme Court docket antitrust case towards the NCAA over compensation.
The states’ attorneys picked up questioning of Jay Marciano, the COO of AEG, a competitor to Reside Nation on a number of fronts. Whereas Hatch refreshed jurors on components of Marciano’s prior testimony, it was in any other case a reasonably normal examination. Marciano testified about ticketing fashions he prefers in Europe, the place a number of ticketing providers typically work at a venue, not like the norm within the US the place venues have a tendency to simply accept unique ticketing contracts, typically from Ticketmaster.
On cross examination, Marciano spoke to an incident the jury heard about early within the trial: a name between the Barclays Heart’s then-CEO and Reside Nation CEO Michael Rapino, who responded to an try to abandon Ticketmaster by saying it might be more durable for the world to get live shows with the brand new UBS Area close by. Whereas Barclays interpreted this as a risk to guard Ticketmaster, Marciano affirmed that it’s frequent as a live performance promoter to play venues towards one another to get extra favorable phrases, and that the UBS Area doubtless would entice artists away from Barclays as the brand new venue on the town.
Reside Nation’s president of US live shows, Robert Roux, addressed a separate allegation: that Reside Nation makes use of its broad management over US amphitheaters to take care of its monopoly energy, leaving no different actual choices for artists trying to play giant out of doors venues. By Reside Nation’s personal enterprise shows, plaintiff legal professional Josh Hafenbrack demonstrated that the corporate made large strides to achieve energy over 4 of the highest 5 amphitheaters within the US by ticket gross sales between 2016 and now. A 2018 presentation confirmed a largely highlighted checklist of the highest 100 amps worldwide, with the inexperienced highlights representing the 62 Reside Nation owned, operated, or solely booked venues on the time. Since then, Roux confirmed, the corporate has added a number of extra on that checklist.
Reside Nation denies it acted anticompetitively, and argues the states ignore other forms of venues that compete for a similar exhibits. However Roux wrote in a 2015 electronic mail that many non-superstar artists are available in desirous to play amphitheaters — lots of which, proof proven in court docket has prompt, are managed or solely booked by Reside Nation. He additionally wrote that in these instances, there was “room for tighter negotiations and offers.”
“Both we’re collectively or we’re opponents”
Different emails described how Reside Nation thinks about its competitors when considering in any other case profitable offers. In a 2018 electronic mail trade, Rapino questioned why Reside Nation ought to give exhibits to a promoter within the South it thought of buying, Pink Mountain Leisure, earlier than it really owned it. Roux wrote on the time that the message to Pink Mountain must be, “Both we’re collectively or we’re opponents.” He described the strategy as a “velvet hammer.” On the witness stand, Roux stated the message wasn’t meant to “antagonize” the promoter, however to be agency and ship a transparent message. In a separate trade that talked about Pink Mountain, Roux wrote that Reside Nation shouldn’t get “complacent” and “let small guys encroach from the perimeters.” Roux stated the remark was a basic one, and never particular to the promoter. Reside Nation acquired Pink Mountain in 2018.
In 2020, Rapino suggested Roux towards letting Radio Disney and live performance promoter Superfly right into a Reside Nation venue, even after they supplied a contract that may yield at the least $400,000 in revenue for Reside Nation for renting out the amp. One government had raised a priority about permitting a third-party promoter into the amp, despite the fact that the “cash is nice.”
Lastly, Roux testified that Reside Nation’s earnings per fan have multiplied lately, with profitability in giant amps, a key market within the case, rising greater than different venue classes between 2019 and 2024. Earlier than sure prices had been factored in, the corporate made $386 million in revenue from giant amps in 2024, practically triple the quantity it made in that phase in 2019.
Apart from the delay within the case whereas the states’ workforce sorted out its subsequent strikes absent the DOJ, there wasn’t a noticeable change within the circulate of trial and the way the brand new litigators operated, in comparison with the primary week of trial. The case remains to be anticipated to run a number of extra weeks, although either side stated they’ve labored to trim their witness lists to assist make up for misplaced time. Towards the top of this week, one of many trial’s most high-profile witnesses is anticipated to take the stand: Reside Nation’s CEO.