If you’ve ever paid $60 to park in a field of dirt and gravel at an amphitheater show, congratulations — someone in a Live Nation office was laughing about it.
Court documents surfaced this week in the DOJ’s antitrust case against the concert giant — reported by Variety and Bloomberg — revealing a 2022 Slack exchange between two of the company’s regional ticketing directors, Ben Baker and Jeff Weinhold. The topic: how much they could squeeze out of fans through “ancillary fees” like parking and lawn chair rentals. The tone: gleeful.
Weinhold floated VIP parking priced at $250 a spot for a single show. Baker‘s reaction: “These people are so stupid.” A beat later: “I almost feel bad taking advantage of them.”
He did not, in fact, feel bad. Baker went on to brag about charging “$50 to park in the grass” and “$60 for closer grass.” “Robbing them blind, baby,” he wrote. “That’s how we do it.”
Live Nation pushed to keep the messages buried and out of the antitrust trial. A DOJ attorney argued they provided a “candid, contemporaneous look into how they view prices.” Judge Aran Subramanian agreed and ordered the full documents released.
The company’s damage control was swift and creative. A spokesperson called Baker “one junior staffer” chatting with “a friend” — conveniently leaving out that Baker was actually head of ticketing for Live Nation‘s Venue Nation division and was due to testify in the trial this week. And according to The New York Times, Weinhold is the senior ticketing director in the Washington area.
The full statement: “The Slack exchange from one junior staffer to a friend absolutely doesn’t reflect our values or how we operate. Because this was a private Slack message, leadership learned of this when the public did, and will be looking into the matter promptly. Our business only works when fans have great experiences, which is why we’ve capped amphitheater venue fees at 15% and have invested $1 billion in the last 18 months into U.S. venues and fan amenities.”
A billion dollars in venue improvements. Bold move from the company whose guy was pricing grass parking at $60 a pop.
Live Nation did reach a tentative settlement with the DOJ earlier this week, narrowly avoiding a forced split from Ticketmaster. But 27 states — including New York, California, and Colorado — filed their own parallel legal actions and are not going anywhere.
Sleep tight, Live Nation — the parking’s free in federal court. Too bad the same can’t be said for your reputation.
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