Trump Administration to Music Fans: Just Kidding About Coming to Save You

Mr. Shachtman, a contributing Opinion writer, is a former editor in chief of Rolling Stone.

For a hot second there, it looked as if the government might pry loose Live Nation’s chokehold on the American concert business. Live Nation Entertainment is the company that brought you $5,000 Springsteen tickets and V.I.P. packages at Beyoncé concerts with $550 in fees alone, and it did it by controlling every aspect of live music, from the tickets sold, to the artists promoted, to venues themselves — an over-$20 billion-per-year global empire spanning 54,000 events a year and 394 halls as of late 2024.

Music........

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