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As if Live Nation needed another controversy.
The global live entertainment giant and its ticketing subsidiary Ticketmaster have long been criticized for high ticket prices, additional fees and their influence over the live music industry. Now, newly revealed internal messages could intensify that scrutiny.
Slack conversations exchanged between Live Nation ticketing executives between 2021 and 2023 have been made public as part of an ongoing antitrust trial in the United States. As first reported by Bloomberg and later detailed by HuffPost, the messages come from discussions between two regional ticketing directors at the company.
In one exchange, an executive boasts about charging $50 to park in a field at a concert and $60 for a slightly closer parking spot, before joking that the company is essentially “robbing them blind… that’s how we do it.”
The messages surfaced after journalists requested that court documents linked to the case be made public.
According to the Associated Press, prosecutors want to introduce these exchanges as evidence in the antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The lawsuit argues that the company has used its dominance across the live music ecosystem — including concert promotion, venues and ticketing — to suppress competition and increase costs for fans.
The internal discussions also reference what the industry calls “ancillary fees” — additional charges attached to concerts for services such as VIP access, premium parking or special areas inside venues.
In another message cited by HuffPost, the executive admits he “gouges” customers through those add-ons. For regulators, these fees represent one of the ways Live Nation can maximize revenue thanks to its strong position in the amphitheater and concert market.
Live Nation disputes that interpretation. The company says the Slack exchange was a private conversation between employees and does not reflect corporate policy. It also argues that ticket prices themselves are set by artists, teams or venues.
The company had also attempted to prevent the messages from becoming public, arguing in court filings that they were irrelevant to the case and could prejudice the jury, according to HuffPost’s reporting.
Meanwhile, the broader legal battle is still unfolding. A recent agreement between Live Nation and the U.S. government includes a 15% cap on certain service fees and the termination of several exclusive ticketing deals with amphitheaters.
However, more than two dozen states involved in the lawsuit may still choose to continue the legal fight independently.
At a time when concert prices are already a growing concern for audiences, the messages are unlikely to help the company’s image. For many fans, they simply confirm a suspicion that has been circulating for years: that the modern live music economy has become an extremely profitable machine — sometimes at the audience’s expense.
The revelations also land at a moment when the economics of live music are already under increasing scrutiny. Over the past few years, artists, promoters and audiences alike have started questioning whether the concert industry still functions as an ecosystem that circulates value — or one that increasingly concentrates it. Between rising ticket prices, layers of additional fees and the multiplication of “premium” experiences designed to segment audiences, the live music economy has begun to resemble other highly optimized entertainment industries. As we recently explored in our opinion piece “Who Wins When the Club Is Full?”, the real question is no longer simply who plays the show, but who actually captures the value when the room is sold out — and who absorbs the risk, labour and precarity that make the night possible in the first place.
And for those already considering a boycott of Live Nation, the revelations may offer yet another reason.