US Senators Call On DOJ To Continue Investigating Ticketmaster

On Wednesday, senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee sent a letter calling on the Justice Department to keep looking into Ticketmaster over concerns that it holds monopoly power.

In the letter, addressed to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, they said “For too long, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have wielded monopoly power anticompetitively, harming fans and artists alike.”

“As an initial matter, other than Live Nation’s executive, every witness at our hearing testified that Live Nation is harming America’s music industry,” the senators wrote. “We asked Live Nation a number of questions about competition both at the hearing and afterwards, but it has largely failed to answer them.” They added: “Live Nation’s responses amount to ‘trust us.’ We believe that is wholly insufficient.”

Related: DOJ Opens Antitrust Probe Into Ticketmaster

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing last month to examine the outsize role of Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010. The issues arose ticketing issues that left thousands of Taylor Swift fans in their hunt for tickets to a coming tour.

In the fall of 2022, Klobuchar wrote to Ticketmaster questioning the company after it said it would cancel public sale of tickets for Swift’s coming tour after lengthy wait times and technical issues caused disruptions during its presale. The same month, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department had opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation.