{"id":9985,"date":"2026-03-08T04:39:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T04:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/live-nation-doj-trial-week-1-recap-taylor-swift-opening-statements\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T04:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T04:39:39","slug":"live-nation-doj-trial-week-1-recap-taylor-swift-opening-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/live-nation-doj-trial-week-1-recap-taylor-swift-opening-statements\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Nation DOJ Trial Week 1 Recap: Taylor Swift, Opening Statements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tWhen Live Nation\u2019s epic DOJ antitrust trial finally kicked off this week, it didn\u2019t disappoint, featuring strongly-worded opening statements, a battle over a botched Taylor Swift presale, and claims of a \u201cthreat\u201d against a Brooklyn venue if it dropped Ticketmaster.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re reading <\/em>Billboard\u2019s weekly Live Nation trial recap, a weekly one-sheet of everything that happened in the Department of Justice\u2019s monopoly case against the concert giant. Stay tuned here each Friday for all the testimony and big events you might have missed.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n\tWHAT HAPPENED: <\/strong>Nearly two years after the DOJ accused Live Nation of holding an illegal monopoly over live music, the two sides finally went before a jury, kicking off a trial that\u2019s expected to last roughly six weeks and could have huge implications for the concert business.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn opening statements to the jury on Tuesday (March 3), DOJ lawyer David Dahlquist <\/strong>said that the concert industry is \u201cbroken\u201d and \u201ccontrolled by Live Nation.\u201d Firing back for Live Nation was David Marriott<\/strong>, who said the government had \u201ccherry-picked\u201d evidence to support such claims in an industry that\u2019s \u201cmore competitive than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA key point of contention was the infamous 2022 presale for Swift\u2019s Eras Tour, which saw widespread outages and sparked backlash against Ticketmaster. The DOJ told jurors it was evidence Live Nation has no incentive for good customer service: \u201cTheir technology is held together by duct tape.\u201d Live Nation defended itself by saying the incident was caused by cyberattacks and unprecedented traffic, and that nobody could have handled it better.<\/p>\n

\n\tWHO TESTIFIED: <\/strong>The government\u2019s first witness was John Abbamondi<\/strong>, former CEO of the owner of Brooklyn\u2019s Barclays Center, who testified Wednesday that Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino<\/strong> threatened to withhold major artists if the venue switched from Ticketmaster to rival ticketer SeatGeek, Bloomberg<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe feds played a recording of a phone call in which Rapino told Abbamondi that it would be \u201ctough to deliver concerts\u201d to Barclays and that he might send them to the nearby UBS Arena on Long Island \u2014 statements Abbamondi said he understood as a \u201cthreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Barclays did eventually go with SeatGeek, Abbamondi said the venue saw acts diverted to other arenas, including a Billie Eilish concert that went to UBS Arena, according to Courthouse News<\/a><\/em>: \u201cWe saw a dramatic decline in shows booked at the arena,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn cross-examination by Marriott, Abbamondi admitted he didn\u2019t know why Eilish had gone elsewhere, and acknowledged other Barclays execs had qualms about SeatGeek. Live Nation\u2019s lawyer also pressed Abbamondi on his personal ties to SeatGeek, getting him to say he has many \u201cfriends and colleagues\u201d at the ticketing company.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeatGeek\u2019s own founder, Jack Groetzinger<\/strong>, took the stand later in the week, telling jurors that the company offers \u201cretaliation insurance\u201d to venues fearful of Live Nation\u2019s wrath, Bloomberg<\/em> reports<\/a>. But in a heated cross-examination, Marriott painted Groetzinger as a self-interested competitor who had helped spark the lawsuit. According to Inner City Press<\/a><\/em>, Marriott at one point cited an email in which a Barclays exec said she was concerned about \u201cperception issues\u201d with SeatGeek\u2019s technology and practices.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther witnesses this week included AEG Presents CEO Jay Marciano<\/strong>; Marc Geiger<\/strong> of Gate 52, a services platform for indie venues; Mitch Helgerson<\/strong>, chief revenue officer at the NHL\u2019s Minnesota Wild; and concert promoter\/venue owner Seth Hurwitz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n\tHurwitz, who previously fought his own legal battle with Live Nation, complained about the company\u2019s industry dominance, according to Bloomberg<\/em>, but said he\u2019d never been threatened and actually credited Ticketmaster\u2019s performance: \u201cThey do a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWHY IT MATTERS:<\/strong> One of the DOJ\u2019s two key claims is that Live Nation coerces venues into using Ticketmaster, both through the use of long-term exclusive contracts and with threats to divert concerts elsewhere. The Barclays incident is one of their primary alleged examples of this \u2014\u00a0a case where the venue was allegedly not only threatened overtly, but objectively saw fewer concerts and was forced to crawl back to Ticketmaster.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe feds want Abbamondi and Groetzinger\u2019s testimony to help jurors believe that argument, but Live Nation will be hoping that the cross-exams had the opposite effect, painting two crucial government witnesses as unreliable voices with ulterior motives.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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When Live Nation\u2019s epic DOJ antitrust trial finally kicked off this week, it didn\u2019t disappoint, featuring strongly-worded opening statements, a battle over a botched Taylor Swift presale, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1343,344,1206,6045,4280,4982,3029,3028,342,1261],"class_list":["post-9985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-doj","tag-live","tag-nation","tag-opening","tag-recap","tag-statements","tag-swift","tag-taylor","tag-trial","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}