Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell has once again called for concert promoter and entertainment giant Live Nation to be broken up.
Pascrell has said the reasoning behind this call includes Live Nation’s domination of the industry and how this helped the recent attack on comedian Dave Chappelle while he was performing and November’s Astroworld tragedy.
Chappelle was attacked on stage at the beginning of this month, while Astroworld led to deaths of 10 attendees following a crowd crush.
The Congressman told the New York Post: “About 200 deaths and 750 injuries occurred at Live Nation events since 2006. Have safety measures not improved? Has Live Nation silenced organisers? I want answers. I think the public deserves to know.”
In March, Pascrell wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, to urge members to look at federal guidelines to make it easier to overturn bad mergers. He used the Live Nation and Ticketmaster deal as an example.
Pascrell wrote to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter and said: “I write to suggest you streamline and simplify the ability of the FTC and DOJ to undo mergers that ultimately harm competitiveness and contribute to market concentration.
“Furthermore, I urge you to closely assess one such disastrous merger, the 2010 marriage of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and overturn it for the good of consumers and America.”
Image: Tijs van Leur on Unsplash