Is Corporate control of Europes Festival Economy an Oligopoly?

If it wasn't clear to you already then this analysis run by Live DMA and Reset Network proves that the festival business of Europe is controlled by only Four major companies.

There is a lot of discussion in the industry around who owns what and developing grassroots events seems to fall by the wayside. At the end of the day the general public has zero visibility on where their money is actually going.

People are tired of the same line ups, less diversity and increasing ticket prices. Market ownership concentration represented in this investigation proves we enter into Oligopoly territory. While not a monopoly the few firms that hold control behave strategically and in similar ways together to maintain consumer control.

What can be done? Associations and independent bodies are asking for companies like Live Nation to be broken up. Efforts to do so in the US however failed as regulators accepted a 'fine' in place of mandating to break up Live Nations venue and management business from the ticket selling arm (TicketMaster). These vertically integrated platforms hold control over the end to end operations of the entertainment business. They manage the artists who are booked at the venues which they also own as well as sell the tickets through their own ticketing platform. Same agents, same management, same artists, same venues, delivered through a corporate structure that is designed to extract maximum value from the consumer, not to deliver maximum entertainment.

Read more here from DJ Mag.