How big is Ticketmaster? How one company dominates the Irish market

Whether it was a gig or a hurling match, if you bought a ticket recently, the chances are that Ticketmaster sold it to you. The company, part of global entertainment behemoth Live Nation, is by far the biggest player in the Irish market.

Ticketmaster will not say how big it is. However, a Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) investigation found three years ago that, in 2012-2018, it had more than 90 per cent of the Irish market, “whether measured by revenue or by gross ticket value”. In short, more than €9 of every €10 spent on tickets for live events in the Republic went to the company.

The commission, the State agency responsible for ensuring that businesses abide by competition law rules, could not say this week if the situation had changed radically since. However, there is no indication that Ticketmaster’s share of the market has fallen dramatically since the regulator published its report in 2020.

Ticketmaster has relationships with a number of Ireland’s leading sports bodies, the GAA, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). The company and the Republic’s leading music promoter MCD, which is bringing Coldplay to Dublin later this month and Taylor Swift next year, are both part of US-based Live Nation, which took over the global ticketing business in 2010.

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That multinational in turn operates big Dublin venues, including 3 Arena, once called the Point Depot, and the Bord Gáis Energy, Gaiety and Olympia theatres. Live Nation is also responsible for the Electric Picnic festival, to be run next month in Stradbally, Co Laois, and Longitude, in Marlay Park in Dublin’s south suburbs, which was held in July. This year Live Nation produced the Trinity Summer Series, several smaller concerts in the grounds of the Dublin university.

When Live Nation bought MCD in 2019 the CCPC allowed the deal subject to several conditions to ensure fair competition. These included that the promoter and Tickemaster Ireland operate at “arms length”, that is independently of each other and in their own interest; a measure to ensure that independent venues and artists could continue to compete with the multinational empire in the Republic.

Monitoring

Ticketmaster maintains that its success here predates the merger with Live Nation. It says its clients choose the company because of the “industry-leading tools, service and technology we provide that enable them to sell tickets more effectively”.

No one has formally complained to the CCPC since the MCD merger or since the commission completed its three-year investigation of Ticketmaster Ireland. However, the regulator said this week that some have raised concerns about the online ticket market here. The organisation did not say who raised those issues, how many there were, or which company or companies prompted the concerns.

The CCPC says it has continued detailed monitoring of Ticketmaster Ireland since it concluded its inquiry in 2020. This stems from an agreement between the pair that was endorsed by a High Court order in November of that year and came into effect the following January. That bars the ticketing company from entering contracts with venues that contain exclusivity clauses, or from agreeing any exclusive deal with any live event organiser that runs for more than three years.

None of Ticketmaster’s contracts can last longer than five years, nor can they include an automatic renewal clause. The company cannot make any upfront payments to customers meant to circumvent those terms.

The CCPC imposed these conditions because its investigation arrived at the preliminary finding that Ticketmaster was abusing its dominant position in the Irish market, which was a breach of competition law. The conclusion was preliminary as only a court can determine guilt, not an investigating body such as the CCPC.

Fundamentally, the regulators concluded that the company had long-term, exclusive arrangements with customers that potentially prevented competition. Clauses in these agreements meant that Ticketmaster was the only advertised source of tickets, or that it got a minimum quota of 80 per cent or more of available tickets. Some agreements expressly prohibited the company’s customers from allocating tickets to its rivals.

Tickemaster Ireland contested the CCPC’s preliminary findings line by line. First the company argued that market share was a poor “proxy” for market power in a country as small as Ireland. Second, it noted that it was not “inevitable” that all live event organisers should use its services as there were other businesses to which they could switch.

The company disputed that exclusivity clauses and long-term contracts had any effect on competition, or that upfront payments were a way of encouraging clients into multiyear exclusive deals. Its view was that “multiyear exclusive agreements allowed for the upfront financing of events and allowed customers to invest in infrastructure and technology”.

The courts never tried these issues. Irish law allows any organisation investigated by the CCPC to avoid possible legal proceedings by entering an agreement that addresses any competition concerns that the commission has raised. This is what the parties did. Ticketmaster drafted terms meant to deal with the regulator’s concerns, so the pair began talks that ended the investigation and ultimately led to the agreement.

The company consented to the CCPC applying to have the deal made an order of the High Court, and this came into effect on January 29th, 2021. The commission this week confirmed that any failure to comply with the order’s terms would constitute contempt of court. Ticketmaster says it continues to comply with the order at all times.

Asked this week why it opted for the agreement rather than going to court to vindicate its position that it was not in breach of competition law, Ticketmaster responded: “we were pleased with the CCPC’s resolution in 2020 and confident in our continued compliance.”

The CCPC noted that due to the legal nature of its work “we cannot share any further information about our engagement with Ticketmaster”.

None of this is to say that no one is competing with Ticketmaster. Another multinational, Eventbrite, whose Irish base is in Cork, provides a ticketing service for events here and abroad. Tullamore, Co Offaly-based Future Ticketing, develops and sells software to live event organisers that allows them to sell directly to customers through their own systems. That company does business with racecourses here and in Britain, League of Ireland clubs and Connacht Rugby, among others.

Ticketsolve, which has offices in the Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin, has carved a niche for itself in the arts and theatre, here and in Britain. Tickets.ie does business in sport, music, festivals and other events. The CCPC’s report acknowledges that these businesses, and self-ticketing systems, all compete with Ticketmaster to some extent.

‘Preferred provider’

This week the GAA said individual county boards can go with providers other than Ticketmaster, despite the association’s description of the multinational as its “preferred provider”. On that basis it maintains that the company has no exclusive deal with the organisation.

The association, Ireland’s biggest sporting body, was responding to questions after it emerged that Ticketmaster was offering individual county boards incentives to sign up with its Universe app. These include a 15 per cent rebate on 2022 commissions that counties had paid to Ticketmaster.

[ Ticketmaster offers GAA incentives for ticket sale deals ]

An email from Emma Tormey, the GAA’s ticketing manager, states a “GAA cost-savings and loyalty credit of €7,500 is payable to all existing and new counties who sign up to a three-year term to use the Universe ticketing platform”. That credit is payable to all counties who come on board with the association’s “preferred ticketing solution” once sign-up is complete, she adds.

Those terms are based on the full use of Universe as a county’s ticketing application for the duration of a three-year term for club championship games. Consequently, it did not apply to the inter-county championships, according to the GAA, which confirmed the email’s content this week.

The GAA could not say how many counties had signed up as individual boards were yet to decide on the offer. Ticketmaster refused to comment on the email saying that its financial terms were confidential. Neither did the CCPC comment on the GAA-Ticketmaster deal.

Ticketmaster does not reveal any financial information about its business in the Republic. Its operations here are held through unlimited companies, which are not obliged to file accounts. The company was asked how many people it employed but did not answer.

Live Nation dubs itself “Ireland’s largest entertainment rights holder” with more than 29 partners, 14 outdoor events and festivals and 2.6 million fans per year. Globally, Live Nation earned $5.6 billion (€5.08 billion) revenues in the three months to the end of June, with ticketing amounting to $709 million of this. The ticketing business’s profits came to $292 million over that three-month period.

In the US federal authorities are reported to be investigating Live Nation for possible competition law – or antitrust – violations. This week various media said investors were planning their own lawsuit against the group for potentially exposing itself to legal action. However, neither the authorities nor investors have gone to court to seek any remedy at this point.