Arts Minister Tony Burke Sends ‘Very Clear Warning’ to Live Nation, But Not on Dynamic Pricing

As the music industry digests the ABC’s expose on Live Nation and its sister company Ticketmaster, a reminder from the halls of power that the misuse of corporate power won’t get a free ride.

Speaking on Monday night’s (October 14th) Four Corners special, “Music For Sale,” federal Arts Minister Tony Burke insisted the Labour government would be tough on monopolistic behaviour in the music space, though dynamic ticket pricing wasn’t a priority.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are heading down a pathway where these sorts of anti-competitive risks are going to exist within the music sector,” Burke told presenter Avani Dias. “So I put down a very clear warning to the companies on that. Yes, you can buy different parts of a supply chain. That’s all true,” he continued. “But you can’t then use that in an anti-competitive way.”

And “increasingly,” he continued, “we are hearing those complaints from artists, from venues, from festivals,” none of which he identified.

There’s little appetite on tackling “dynamic” ticket pricing, however, a tactic which became a sore point for many Oasis fans in the U.K. and Ireland who experienced onsale surges for the Britpop band’s 2025 comeback tour, produced by Live Nation, and which is now the subject of a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation.

Tony Burke

“Surge pricing is something that as consumers people have always dealt with,” Burke told the ABC. “I don’t love it, but I think we have to be realistic. It’s always been there. It’s not something we’re looking at at the moment.”

Green Day’s The Saviours Tour, promoted by Live Nation’s domestic affiliate, will visit Australia next March, and is one example of a trek that quietly applied dynamic pricing to tickets. As the onsale kicked off, some ticket hunters complained of prices ballooning by several hundred dollars, and took their grievances to social media.

Speaking exclusively with The Music Network, Live Nation ANZ chairman Michael Coppel remarked, “Dynamic pricing is a mechanism that Live Nation and Ticketmaster introduced in the States a few years ago to try and address the leakage of tickets into the secondary market where people are buying tickets, whether they use bots, whether they use any other method, and marking them up and taking a margin that doesn’t go to any of the industry participants, doesn’t go to the artist, doesn’t go to the promoter, doesn’t go to the venue. It’s taken by StubHub, it’s taken by Viagogo etc.”

He continued, “So we went to our artists and said, let’s set a range of prices. Let’s set the starting price. And if there’s a high demand event, let’s have a higher price that we can move to for a selection of the inventory that tries to prevent those tickets going into the secondary market and captures the value for the artist.”

The ABC documentary promised to lift the lid on LN’s dominant position in the Australasian marketplace, Ticketmaster’s opaque system of pricing, and the questionable tactics for a group with a vertically-integrated business model which includes the flagship concert promotion business, one of the two biggest ticketing businesses in Australia, Ticketmaster; booking agencies; festival operators; a growing stable of live music venues, and more.

“A multinational company, Live Nation crashed the scene, sucking up profits and taking over the industry they use,” Dias remarked at the top of the documentary. “It’s being accused of using its business model to plunder competition. We reveal serious allegations that Live Nation is ripping off fans by charging hidden ticket fees and exploiting some of the country’s most talented musicians. Now, industry insiders are speaking out in a last-ditch effort to save Australia’s live music culture.”

Some of those guests included artists Peter Garrett, award-winning indigenous artist Barkaa, and members of the band Bad // Dreems, plus veteran concert promoter Michael Chugg, Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd and others.

Ahead of airing, Live Nation went on the record accusing the Corporation for “inaccurate and unbalanced” reporting.

“I feel disappointed, I feel shabbily done,” comments LN’s Coppel on Tuesday morning. “I thought it was, it was lazy journalism. It was a lot of disaffected industry competitors given a platform to whinge. I think it picked us out as the cause of everything that’s wrong with the industry. It picked us out as if we’ve got some aberrational business model when, in fact, our two major competitors with similar market shares have got the same business model, vertically integrated companies with interests in different areas (including) agency, venues, merchandizing, everything else.”

“There’s certainly a crisis going on,” says Coppel, whose business Michael Coppel Presents was acquired by the concerts giant in 2012, pointing to a “post COVID artifact.” It has “nothing to do with what we’re doing, and we’re not forcing (rivals) out of business.”

Live Performance Australia’s outgoing CEO Evelyn Richardson was less than impressed with the feature. “Any discussion about the state of Australia’s live music industry needs to be focused on the facts – something regrettably missing from the ABC ‘Four Corners’ program last night,” she comments. “As the peak body for the live arts and entertainment industry, it’s disappointing that we weren’t approached for comment or data which could have led to a more informed story.”

Richardson continues, “there’s no doubt some parts of the music industry are under real pressure, but to blame all of those problems on a single company is nonsensical and counter-productive to addressing the real issues at stake. Many of the challenges facing the Australian industry are being experienced globally.” Live Nation Australasia is a member of the trade body.

Live Nation’s response to the “Four Corners” special can be see here. 

Read the full interview with Coppel this Wednesday in The Music Network. Watch the documentary in full below.