In the wake of news that Live Nation Entertainment brought in more than $23 BILLION in revenue in a blockbuster 2023, CBC’s Commotion podcast dedicated an episode this week to analyze the giant’s place in the industry. The podcast, hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, centered around a fairly simple question: Has Live Nation Become Too Powerful?
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Guests on the show were Adrian Horton, a reporter from The Guardian, and Toronto club owner Shawn Bowring. The full report can be listened to on YouTube below:
Much of the conversation centered around the high profile top-level dominance that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have across the larger venues and tours across the globe, such as Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and other “legacy” acts that draw huge audiences like Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Dead & Company, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, and just about everybody else you can think of.
But it also spent time discussing the fact that Live Nation is gobbling up onetime independent venues across North America, including many in Canada, and potentially eliminating smaller club players there too.
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A couple of selected quotes:
There’s definitely been some movement there where they’re purchasing smaller live venues than the big mega venues. That’s happened in New York and L.A. and London. Usually there’s an AEG component in there as well. That’s what’s happening in Toronto now. How is that going to affect things in 5 or 6 years when a bunch of formerly independent venues have been bought up? That’s the kind of scenario we’re looking at in sizing up. I know people that work at Live Nation. It’s a tight community. And up until this point, it’s been a friendly competition. We all know what one another’s doing. But looking into the future, it’s a little bit unknown, but hopefully there’s always room for the upstarts and the underdogs.
-Shaun Bowring
The one thing we can all agree on is that fees should be less, but I don’t know if the bi-partisan bill will actually pass in Congress, but it would not bust up Live Nation. It would change its business practices. In the meantime, people really want to see their favourite artists. And I think it’s a good thing that people want these communal music experiences. And I think as things go, if people have the money and are able to, they’re still going to pay for these big experience concerts.
-Adrian Horton
