Sound check: what a CMA market investigation into the live music sector could mean

Background and context 

Following its inquiry into the live music industry, the Commons Business and Trade Committee has issued a report calling on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to launch a full market investigation before the end of 2026. The Committee concludes that Live Nation “and other vertically integrated companies” are harming competition across the supply chain. It points to concerns about vertical integration, venue access, primary and secondary ticketing, artist exclusivity, data, sponsorship, festivals and the position of grassroots venues.  

The CMA has discretion in how to respond including on the scope and depth of any review, and when to launch it, but has said it is giving the request “active and careful consideration”.  

Beyond the economics of the industry, live music is clearly culturally important. Access to live music, the health of grassroots venues, and the ability of artists to develop outside major corporate ecosystems are all politically salient, and often have a strong regional dimension (see, for example, Andy Burnham’s call for a levy on large venues to fund grassroots ones). Pricing questions matter too – the furore over Oasis tickets (which led to commitments to the CMA from Ticketmaster) and the government’s proposed banning of ticket touts show that despite the government’s wider deregulatory push, there are significant political tailwinds behind intervention.  

What would a CMA market investigation involve? 

The CMA will now be considering next steps. It has various tools at its disposal to assess how competition is working in a particular market, from short market reviews to detailed market studies and more in-depth market investigations. The CMA’s choice will need to consider the complexity of the market, the length of the investigation, resourcing implications and the range of possible interventions that may be necessary.  

A market investigation is one of the CMA’s most powerful tools. The CMA is not required to prove that a company has broken the law, but can still impose binding remedies on companies in scope. 

Given their wide scope and intensity, market investigations are major evidence-gathering exercises. In this case, the CMA would need to understand how tours are promoted, how venues are booked, how ticketing contracts are awarded, how data is used, the role of vertical integration, how festivals compete for artists, how the market enables artist development, and how smaller promoters and venues fit into the wider ecosystem. This would involve detailed information requests, hearings with market participants, and potentially multiple consultations. 

Key questions the CMA may consider 

The CMA will apply its standard competition framework to the sector. We would expect it to address the following sorts of question: 

• Who are the key market players and to what extent may they have market power? The CMA is likely to look at the features and components of the live music value chain and assess whether all should be in scope of the investigation, how they are connected to each other (and indeed if they should be considered to be one market or separate markets), who are the main players in each and whether there are barriers to entry and expansion. 

• What is the impact of vertical integration? The Committee has asked the CMA to assess whether “vertically integrated companies in the UK live music industry are able to behave outside of normal competition constraints”, naming Live Nation, AEG, CTS Eventim and ATG as vertically integrated companies in the sector. The CMA is likely to examine whether vertical integration across multiple layers of the supply chain ultimately creates better outcomes for consumers (e.g. through efficiencies), or on the contrary, gives rise to competition concerns. 

• Is there fair and open access? The CMA may want to understand, for example, whether independent promoters can access attractive venue dates on fair terms, whether venues have genuine choice over ticketing providers, whether ticket inventory is allocated in ways that disadvantage rival platforms, and whether artists or managers feel commercially compelled to use integrated packages covering promotion, ticketing, venues and festivals. 

• What are the impacts of the current market structure for artist development and on grassroots venues? The Committee noted that concentration at arena, stadium and major festival level may reduce the number of artists available for smaller and independent venues and promoters to compete for. Evidence about the artist development pipeline could therefore help the CMA to understand better the long-term competitive dynamics of the market. 

Some of these issues – especially around artist development and grassroots venues – are of significant public interest. To manage the politics, the CMA will need to set out carefully what is within its scope to address, while providing guidance to government on broader topics and areas that may require government action.  

What might happen and how should businesses prepare and engage? 

A market investigation gives the CMA broad powers of intervention, with potential remedies including transparency obligations, the prohibition of exclusivity agreements, mandating fair terms, controls on pricing, and, in extremis, structural break-up (as is being pursued in the US). The commercial implications are significant, so it is important to prepare carefully. 

As the CMA assesses its options, including the scope and timing of any action, there is an early window of opportunity for businesses to feed in their views. It is not necessary to wait until the CMA has formally launched an investigation to engage constructively.  

Businesses should be prepared to approach the CMA with clear arguments and evidence to support them. Even if remedies are usually considered at the later stages of an investigation, there is value in thinking early about potential remedies that the CMA may consider, before the CMA has formed its views. Businesses not doing so risk finding themselves reacting to potentially disruptive proposals developed without their commercial insight. 

The CMA has yet to set the running order. The businesses that engage early – with structured evidence, will help to write the setlist. Those that improvise at a late stage of the process will be left playing catch-up. 

Authors 

This blog post was written by Flint Partner Karla Perca López, Flint Director Kah Loon Tham, and Flint Director Nick Seaford. Karla advices clients on a range of competition cases, including market investigations and was formerly at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Kah Loon is a regulatory and competition economist with experience advising clients on mergers and antitrust issues. Nick advises clients on competition issues, having previously spent five years at the CMA where he ran the Chairman's office.