After a chaotic week following the Justice Division’s mid-trial settlement with Stay Nation-Ticketmaster, the antitrust trial picked again up surprisingly easily on Monday — this time, with dozens of states main the case.
This isn’t the end result the states initially wished. Out of issues about with the ability to successfully take over the case and worry that the jury can be prejudiced by the shakeup, they requested a mistrial, which might have restarted the courtroom battle at an unknown future date. However an irritated Choose Arun Subramanian appeared prone to deny the request, and as soon as the states discovered easy methods to retain the DOJ’s skilled witness and had been capable of rapidly rent up, they withdrew their mistrial movement. After the brand new faces had been launched, the trial restarted from roughly the place it left off greater than every week in the past, with testimony that included how Stay Nation deployed its “velvet hammer” towards rivals.
Subramanian welcomed the jurors again from their “spring break” and requested if that they had learn or encountered any information in regards to the case after they had been out, which is forbidden by the jury directions. They both shook their heads or remained silent. He reminded the jurors that the US had resolved its claims, as had a handful of states, however the remainder had been continuing to trial. Jurors shouldn’t make any inferences from the actual fact these events are not within the case, he stated.
With the DOJ out of the image, the attorneys who questioned early witnesses had been gone, changed by a brand new staff co-led by Jonathan Hatch, an legal professional from the New York AG’s workplace, and Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn, who represented school athletes within the landmark Supreme Courtroom antitrust case towards the NCAA over compensation.
The states’ attorneys picked up questioning of Jay Marciano, the COO of AEG, a competitor to Stay Nation on a number of fronts. Whereas Hatch refreshed jurors on components of Marciano’s prior testimony, it was in any other case a reasonably commonplace examination. Marciano testified about ticketing fashions he prefers in Europe, the place a number of ticketing companies usually work at a venue, not like the norm within the US the place venues have a tendency to just accept unique ticketing contracts, usually from Ticketmaster.
On cross examination, Marciano spoke to an incident the jury heard about early within the trial: a name between the Barclays Heart’s then-CEO and Stay Nation CEO Michael Rapino, who responded to an try to abandon Ticketmaster by saying it might be tougher for the world to get live shows with the brand new UBS Area close by. Whereas Barclays interpreted this as a risk to guard Ticketmaster, Marciano affirmed that it’s frequent as a live performance promoter to play venues towards one another to get extra favorable phrases, and that the UBS Area possible would entice artists away from Barclays as the brand new venue on the town.
Stay Nation’s president of US live shows, Robert Roux, addressed a separate allegation: that Stay Nation makes use of its broad management over US amphitheaters to keep up its monopoly energy, leaving no different actual choices for artists trying to play giant outside venues. By Stay Nation’s personal enterprise displays, plaintiff legal professional Josh Hafenbrack demonstrated that the corporate made huge strides to realize energy over 4 of the highest 5 amphitheaters within the US by ticket gross sales between 2016 and now. A 2018 presentation confirmed a largely highlighted listing of the highest 100 amps worldwide, with the inexperienced highlights representing the 62 Stay Nation owned, operated, or completely booked venues on the time. Since then, Roux confirmed, the corporate has added a number of extra on that listing.
Stay Nation denies it acted anticompetitively, and argues the states ignore other forms of venues that compete for a similar reveals. However Roux wrote in a 2015 e mail that many non-superstar artists are available eager to play amphitheaters — a lot of which, proof proven in courtroom has steered, are managed or completely booked by Stay Nation. He additionally wrote that in these instances, there was “room for tighter negotiations and offers.”
“Both we’re collectively or we’re rivals”
Different emails described how Stay Nation thinks about its competitors when considering in any other case profitable offers. In a 2018 e mail change, Rapino questioned why Stay Nation ought to give reveals to a promoter within the South it thought of buying, Crimson Mountain Leisure, earlier than it truly owned it. Roux wrote on the time that the message to Crimson Mountain ought to be, “Both we’re collectively or we’re rivals.” He described the method as a “velvet hammer.” On the witness stand, Roux stated the message wasn’t meant to “antagonize” the promoter, however to be agency and ship a transparent message. In a separate change that talked about Crimson Mountain, Roux wrote that Stay Nation shouldn’t get “complacent” and “let small guys encroach from the sides.” Roux stated the remark was a basic one, and never particular to the promoter. Stay Nation acquired Crimson Mountain in 2018.
In 2020, Rapino suggested Roux towards letting Radio Disney and live performance promoter Superfly right into a Stay Nation venue, even after they supplied a contract that might yield at the least $400,000 in revenue for Stay Nation for renting out the amp. One government had raised a priority about permitting a third-party promoter into the amp, despite the fact that the “cash is nice.”
Lastly, Roux testified that Stay Nation’s income per fan have multiplied in recent times, with profitability in giant amps, a key market within the case, rising greater than different venue classes between 2019 and 2024. Earlier than sure prices had been factored in, the corporate made $386 million in revenue from giant amps in 2024, practically triple the quantity it made in that phase in 2019.
Apart from the delay within the case whereas the states’ staff sorted out its subsequent strikes absent the DOJ, there wasn’t a noticeable change within the move of trial and the way the brand new litigators operated, in comparison with the primary week of trial. The case remains to be anticipated to run a number of extra weeks, although either side stated they’ve labored to trim their witness lists to assist make up for misplaced time. Towards the top of this week, one of many trial’s most high-profile witnesses is predicted to take the stand: Stay Nation’s CEO.
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