In 2017, the owners of a US concert venue held a meeting with Ticketmaster about securing a ticketing partner. They were surprised to be joined by a promoter from Live Nation, its massive US events owner.

In the meeting, the Live Nation executive said explicitly that if the venue didn’t choose Ticketmaster, it would not stage events there. And when the venue eventually did choose a rival ticketer, Live Nation allegedly made good on its threat. Rather than getting the three or four shows a year expected, the venue instead received precisely zero.

The case was one of a number uncovered by the US Department of Justice in 2019 that allegedly showed Live Nation using its position in concert promotion to pressure venues to use its Ticketmaster subsidiary. The probe into the 15-year-old merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster led to an agreement to extend and amend decrees around the 2010 deal.