alt Hacker NewsThis is not a reasonable take on what's actually happening. It's never been a reasonable take, but posting this today after Live Nation has literally just been found liable by a jury shows deep confusion.
The ticket prices are not high because of market realities. They're high because of illegal monopoly behavior that inflates costs and then steals the money and gives it to Michael Rapino and his friends. The behavior of Live Nation has been shown to be much closer to organized crime than what most people think of as standard business practice.
There's extensive on-the-record testimony and an official federal court verdict backing up my side of this argument.
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1000% this.
Livenation’s profit margins are not very impressive for a business that supposedly has pricing power.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/LYV/live-nation-en...
Are you suggesting Livenation’s leaders (Rapino, etc) are stealing from the other shareholders?
Looks like Liberty Live Group owns 30% of Livenation? And Rapino owns less than 2%, per Yahoo Finance.
https://www.libertyliveholdings.com/about
Page 31 of Livenation’s 2025 10-K shows $25B revenue, $19B direct operating expenses, and $4B selling, general, and admin expenses. I wonder how much of the expenses is not going to performers and the expenses of operating venues.
https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/an...
Re: LN, I agree 100% with the evidence presented in, and outcome of, that trial; Live Nation absolutely deserves the verdict they received and it's amazing it took this long to get it. I just don't fully buy the idea that they (and they alone) are the reasons that tickets are priced the way that they are.
I guess I'm in the Lefsetz School of Thought [0][1] about it all (and I know, he's a polarizing personality, so I get it when people think he's full of shit), but I also think that two things can be right at the same time (Rapino and gang are criminals, ticket prices cost a lot because that's what they cost)
Maybe I'm wrong! I don't have much skin in this game man, I just personally find that his takes mirror what I see happening in real life to friends and colleagues who are artists, promoters and venue operators.
[0] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/20/capping-resale/
[1] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/15/live-nation-loses/