r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Sep 14 '26

article Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour After Onstage Statements

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/macklemore-dropped-ed-sheeran-tour-pro-palestine-statements-1235625967/
22.3k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

4.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.0k

u/Candid-Mulberry8359 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 15 '26

Is Ed’s tour live nation tour?

Edit: It is live nation promoted. But the Venues are not owned or operated by LiveNation. Not sure how much that means . Just adding facts.

Edit to the edit: Live nation is not the promoter. Just the ticketing platform

Edit to the edits edit: Fuck Robert Kraft.

2.3k

u/soonerfreak Sep 14 '26

Live Nation promotes enough concerts that they can black ball you if you don't play along. A key reason the entire company must be broken up.

691

u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

they dont just promote, ticketmaster and livenation are the same company. and yes.

198

u/dange616 Sep 14 '26

Not to mention actually operate and book many of the concert venues they play.

10

u/LumpyPhilosopher8 Sep 14 '26

I really want them to release the venues that forced this. Was it the ones owned by Ticketmaster or independents?
Yes Ticketmaster is evil - but were they actually behind this. Then we know who to boycott

39

u/BussyPalace Sep 14 '26

Macklemore's IG statement provides more details.

TLDR: Robert Kraft (of the Patriots and owner of Gillette Stadium) personally told Ed that he would not be allowed to perform at his stadium if Macklemore was part of the tour. Kraft also rounded up his other stadium owning billionaires to prohibit Macklemore from performing at their venues as well for the remainder of Ed's tour. Keep Macklemore and Ed's tour dates at those venues would be cancelled.

So Ed bent the knee to Kraft and Co.

16

u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

money corrupts everything

and I am listening to dirty money by clipse haha

16

u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

that guy that gets happy endings at massage parlors.

fuck Kraft

6

u/Knotted_Hole69 Sep 14 '26

Yeah, ill be avoiding them for this.

4

u/BBC-dont-show-BBC Sep 15 '26

So Craft will go after Mackelmore for a statement but he bends over and let's Putin steal one of his Super Bowl rings as he watches.

24

u/shaqwillonill Sep 14 '26

The venues that allegedly objected to the rapper include: Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

The article blames Robert Kraft who would definitely have sway over all these venues as they are all NFL stadiums

3

u/mschley2 Sep 15 '26

Lol so it was specifically all of the NFL owners

1

u/excellentforcongress Sep 15 '26

it would be very unfortunate if there was a mass boycott of all major privately owned stadiums, the nfl, livenation, ticketmaster, private equity, and anything owned by any billionaires, and people abandoned all sports leagues controlled by billionaires, and allowed all of those stadiums to go bankrupt and get claimed by their respective local communities, where teams who are cooperatively owned could play, in leagues that are owned by the general public, and refused corporate advertising dollars, and ticket master live nation went bankrupt and everyone had to go to venues owned by cooperatives, with ticket sales handled by cooperatives, and all of those cooperatives actually cared about protecting human life

4

u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26

Boycotting Ticketmaster would be like boycotting most live music. They even run many small shows

2

u/sumptin_wierd Sep 16 '26

billionaires is who you boycott

→ More replies (2)

1

u/CasperTheHomosexualF Sep 15 '26

And manage the artists. Vertical integration, baby.

100

u/notjustforperiods Sep 14 '26

Macklemore's been pretty transparent about the whole thing and he says the Kraft family got enough stadium owners to band together and apply enough pressure

LiveNation is evil, obviously, but to suggest they'd play their hand and exhaust political capital for something like this is pretty silly

3

u/seasnakejake Sep 15 '26

Wonder how many of those stadiums were subsidized with tax dollars

45

u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 Sep 14 '26

Good news, ticket master has been in court for keeping a monopoly over the industry, LiveNation might actually get broken up

24

u/noc_user Sep 15 '26

There’s a shady AF settlement in the Ticketmaster trial and it reeks of backroom deal.

7

u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26

I thought that was thrown out and they just had to pay some states a few million dollars (even though Ticketmaster and livenation is a worldwide company)?

4

u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 Sep 15 '26

If it was within the last few days Im unaware of it, I know they've had multiple suits but this was a little over a week ago

2

u/No_Tomato2006 Sep 15 '26

ah yes, pay some money to the politicians to keep fucking the people. just gotta get their palms greased. hope you're wrong but fear you're not

3

u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26

Okay so we were both right in a way:

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/judiciary-democrats-challenge-doj-s-live-nation-ticketmaster-settlement-urge-court-to-investigate-trump-administration-s-backroom-deal

Many states rejected the settlement of hundreds of millions total earlier this year-they were found liable for being an illegal monopoly but the DOJ didn't force a breakup, and settled instead. The 30 someodd states are demanding to trash the spring verdict, and to have a retrial and also look into why tf a settlement was offered to give each state a few million dollars.

Seems like it was upper politicians ...like the fed administration that likely greased their palms in some corrupt deal that fucks the majority of people on earth. It's actually disgusting how they tried to sell out everyone for a few cents per human on earth

Apologies, I didn't know there was an update since the spring verdict. Didn't know it wasn't a shut case and wasn't trying to spread misinfo. The case has been going on for two years already though and once the verdict came I got pissed off and tried to tune it out. I love going to concerts and am a musician myself, and so it drives me nuts how corrupt it has become with such artificially inflated tickets making shows less accessible just due to corporate greed

1

u/No_Tomato2006 Sep 15 '26

Ah ok, well that is nice seeing that it's not settled just yet. I wouldn't be surprised if you were right about the feds, these people certainly have enough money; i'm sure there are some backroom things going on as well. Livenation is horrible to bands even, you always hear horror stories about bands selling merch at their venues and taking large cuts. Things are getting pretty depressing; other companies pay fines as operating costs and if they got their way this would be no different.

20

u/ult_frisbee_chad Sep 14 '26

This is why anti monopoly laws are important.

9

u/hippy_barf_day Sep 15 '26

I think the more important part is enforcement.

5

u/TheTipsyWizard Sep 14 '26

Love this quote from Live nations wiki:

Live Nation is an American events promoter and venue operator based in Beverly Hills, California. Founded in 1996 by Robert F. X. Sillerman as SFX Entertainment, *the company's business was built around consolidating concert promoters into a national entity to counter the oversized influence of ticket behemoth Ticketmaster.***

2

u/regman231 Sep 15 '26

They say “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” They also say “two in the hand is worth three in the pocket.” Or something. Not sure how that one applies but people still say it

2

u/TheTipsyWizard Sep 16 '26

Fool me once shame i6n you, fool me twice... Something something yada yada yada 🤣

5

u/spazzvogel Sep 14 '26

I’m so trying to figure out how to bypass those fucks, mainly for the personal reasons of them fucking over BGP and the good they used to do. Also for Shoreline, they need to lose control of that shit yesterday.

4

u/solojones1138 Sep 14 '26

Yep it is a horrible monopoly that affects everyone in the music industry.

2

u/Enaliss Sep 14 '26

Somehow I just don't think Ed sherran would be that affected

1

u/AdministrativeDelay2 Sep 14 '26

Ed Sheeran is in the top 5 biggest global touring artists. He has more power than the promoter or the venues.

1

u/puke_lust Sep 15 '26

Sounds like some inception is in order

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26

[deleted]

16

u/Shum_Where Sep 14 '26

He meant venues being blackballed by live nation from ever having performers again. Ticketmaster can't control the talent but do they have a stranglehold of where they can perform.

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (17)

1.0k

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

The tour didn't cut Macklemore so much as the venues strongarmed the tour into it.

The remaining tour dates Macklemore was scheduled to be at are all in the USA.

Who owns/controls ticketing at the majority of venues in the USA?

438

u/jakeod27 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Live nation owns venues too

Edited out where I said Ticketmaster instead of live nation

394

u/slapshots1515 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Live Nation owns Ticketmaster

Edit: either way you edit your comment, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are the same company now

160

u/shewy92 Sep 14 '26

Liberty Media is the parent company, they also own SiriusXM and Formula 1. WeRaceAsOne...in the middle east because of $$ bills yall

85

u/Milwambur Sep 14 '26

Their spinoff company Liberty Global also owns Virgin Media in the UK, Sunrise in Switzerland, Vodafone in the Netherlands and Telenet in Belgium, all telecoms companies.

195

u/MelangeBot Sep 14 '26

The entire world is now like 20 companies and half of them are actively run by people who admire Adolf Hitler.

8

u/gadgetwalrus Sep 14 '26

Or want to be Hitler

1

u/Cautious_Estate3330 Sep 15 '26

Half? I envy your optimism.

1

u/Gorstag Sep 15 '26

And they love to name their companies things like "Liberty" to confuse the idiots (often conservatives) which are the easiest to control.

→ More replies (6)

46

u/Coffeedemon Sep 14 '26

"Liberty Media"

You can't even make this up

5

u/EntropyBlast Sep 14 '26

I imagine there would have been nearly 0 concerts held during the late 60's if commenting on Vietnam War was against the rules.

25

u/PyroIsSpai Sep 14 '26

Liberty is right wing?

81

u/never-fiftyone Sep 14 '26

It's primarily controlled by an American billionaire who has hitched his wagon to the "libertarian" movement and has donated to Trump.

10

u/larrylevan Sep 14 '26

John Malone, who donated $250,000 to Trump

3

u/4x4ord Sep 14 '26

Which makes absolutely no sense, but okay.

0

u/never-fiftyone Sep 14 '26

What about that makes absolutely no sense to you?

7

u/4x4ord Sep 14 '26

Libertarians hitching their support to MAGA is what makes no sense.

We're talking about the first Administration to literally host tech billionaires front and center during their inauguration. The first Administration to fully sell us and our data to companies within the first week of office. And the same Administration connected to the GOP, which happened to enact the Patriot Act, which is the least Libertarian piece of legal framework ever created.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/eleventhrees Sep 15 '26

It's a particular sort of liberty, for a particular set of people.

It's a big club, and your not in it.

0

u/counterfitster Sep 14 '26

There is no parent company of Live Nation Entertainment.

0

u/dOOlittlesatan Sep 14 '26

No but Liberty Media owns the largest share of stock,,,

1

u/counterfitster Sep 14 '26

29.9%, which is not "parent company" levels.

→ More replies (1)

0

u/k-trecker Sep 14 '26

CaPiTaLiSm GiVeS Us ChOiCe.

0

u/Corbanis_Maximus Sep 14 '26

And the Atlanta Braves!

79

u/jakeod27 Sep 14 '26

Yep. Seriously fucked

74

u/dOOlittlesatan Sep 14 '26

Now and has been for decades. Nothing new. They just keep trying to hide it with name changes and new companies...I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out AXS, Stubhub, Seatgeek are all owned by ticketmaster...live nation...clearchannel...

11

u/brochaos Sep 14 '26

AXS is AEG is all anschutz.

-2

u/dOOlittlesatan Sep 14 '26

Sure, sure. But who holds the strings? They are just as guilty of every ticketmaster sin, independent from them? or not.

4

u/brochaos Sep 14 '26

confused as to what you are asking. phil anschutz pulls the strings. it's very simple. he owns venues, he owns tours, and he owns the tickets.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (15)

2

u/1980pzx Sep 14 '26

That’s an interesting theory and it absolutely would not shock me, if true.

16

u/jellytwins101 Sep 14 '26

LiveNation also either own the venues or have exclusivity contracts with them.

1

u/WowIfOnly Sep 14 '26 edited 24d ago

Removed

1

u/counterfitster Sep 14 '26

Of course it's not a monopoly, he's not wearing a top hat or monocle!

11

u/earle117 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are the same company.

edit: dude edited his comment to try and make the replies look stupid lol

22

u/jakeod27 Sep 14 '26

No I corrected myself because I looked stupid

2

u/iced_gold Sep 14 '26

Most of the rest of the shows are at football stadiums. Live Nation does not own football. Stadiums. But they often get ticket selling exclusivity on behalf of the venue

7

u/EuphoricMoose8232 Punk Rock Sep 14 '26

The venues are all NFL stadiums. Live Nation doesn’t own those

18

u/Taurothar Sep 14 '26

They just own exclusive ticketing rights, so basically the same thing when it comes to holding an event of that size.

1

u/EuphoricMoose8232 Punk Rock Sep 14 '26

True

1

u/ZealousidealTill2355 Sep 14 '26

They may, but not the stadiums Ed Sheeran plays in. They’re mostly owned by the NFL Franchise and/or the team owner.

So MA would be Robert Kraft, PA would be Jeffrey Lurie, TX would be Jerry Jones, etc etc.

1

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

That's what I was referring to

-1

u/LiveLifeLikeCre Sep 14 '26

Do they own the venues in the tour or are we just trying to blame live Nation instead of the obvious places who don't want any anti Israel sentiment?

1

u/jakeod27 Sep 14 '26

I said owns venues. Not the venues. I was just pointing out the vertical integration. It often gets missed when people think about Antitrust

160

u/Twiddle2332 Sep 14 '26

Live Nation/ Ticketmaster are the monopoly you are referring to. Hopefully are politicians grow some balls and cut this company the f up!

Basically destroying live music. All the smaller acts I have been seeing for years are disbanding and/ or going on indefinite hiatus.

Go f urself live nation.

117

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Wild-Display-765 Sep 14 '26

This is so fucking dystopian. I’m old and will die within the next few years so I got an out. I’m so frightened for those that have to live through this shit. My generation fronted like we had high ideals and look at what we let happen.

1

u/N0tTheATF Sep 16 '26

If that's the way you look at the end of your life and say that's your out I feel sorry for you sounds like you're suffering from some sort of untreated depression.

With that said, just being blatantly up front and honest with you it's because of your generation that this country is as fucked up as it is.

1

u/Wild-Display-765 Sep 16 '26

Who isn’t depressed today on some scale? Honestly, it’s not depression as much as its resignation. I know I’ll die between today and when it happens. I’ve made peace with it.

1

u/Tasty-Grapefruit-191 Sep 17 '26

I just like that a boomer used fronted in this message. Even if you aren’t one the point was valid.

7

u/armin2302 Sep 14 '26

At least a American sees that th EU is not that bad

2

u/The_Drongo_Dinger Sep 15 '26

I mean the solution is remarkably simple, have you tried throwing a couple milly in Trumps general direction? Cause that is quite obviously the way to improve your situation

1

u/_redcloud Sep 15 '26

Fellow Xcel Coloradan. One of the many things that pisses me off, just like you summarized. It’s all BS that we are forced to cow-toe to.

9

u/Dakozi Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

The U.S. under Biden sued Ticketmaster in 2024 with the goal of breaking them up.

But with Trump in office, it seems they got off easy with a settlement.

2

u/Alternative-Farmer98 Sep 15 '26

Yeah although it was Obama and biden's administration that approved to the merger. Which was a huge mistake. Live Nation Ticketmaster merger never should have been approved. But this is neoliberalism for you.

76

u/thefrostyafterburn Sep 14 '26

Its ok to say fuck sometimes. This is one of those times.

18

u/Haxorz7125 Sep 14 '26

The irony of speaking on corporations censoring speech while censoring oneself at the behest of corporations.

-1

u/blahblahsnickers Sep 15 '26

It is ok for us to censor our own speech out of a social conscious and to be respectful to others. It is not ok for our government to censor our speech.

1

u/Haxorz7125 Sep 15 '26

… if you’re gonna censor the word anyway, maybe just don’t use it?

4

u/Bartghamilton Sep 14 '26

Exactly. Fuck those fucking fuckers!

3

u/hannibellecter Sep 14 '26

the only balls politicians get is to fuck the common people, certainly not big businesses

3

u/HoneyShaft Sep 14 '26

Bernie in 2016 was our best chance and even then the majority of our government is compromised.

2

u/Twiddle2332 Sep 14 '26

I hope that enough people are pissed off to maybe get some consumer protections in place - I know I sure am. Don’t lose hope

1

u/rab2bar Sep 14 '26

There are tons of small sound providers, so it is interesting that all the venues are locked up like this. As always, artists need to get more creative

29

u/StrippinChicken Sep 14 '26

Ed Sheeran could have still stood on business with Macklemore. Morally corrupt loser

78

u/deadkestrel Sep 14 '26

Not defending Sheeran but there are a lot of people working on this tour who would lose their job and income if the tour was suddenly cancelled.

9

u/kiltedfrog Sep 14 '26

Taking a stand against fascism isn't always going to be EASY. The Right thing rarely is. I imagine Ed's got enough money of his own to make it right with his crew, and also not fold to the genocidal regime.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

[deleted]

1

u/kiltedfrog Sep 14 '26

I know you think this is some kinda gatcha... but I do put my money where my mouth is, what money I can and still survive.

It would be a much larger percentage if I had Ed Sheeran money, too. Ed should stop being a fucking coward and do something good for other people with his platform. Taking the neutral stance between fascism and non fascism isn't taking a neutral stance, it's siding with fascism.

Ed Sheeran is a Fascist.

10

u/StrippinChicken Sep 14 '26

Obviously that sucks, but livenation would also lose that money. Which is all they care about

3

u/Pennwisedom Sep 14 '26

They "care" but they'll just make that back, meanwhile the guy making $35k is gonna be way more fucked.

→ More replies (7)

30

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

You realize he signed contracts and has legal obligations to the tour, yeah?

9

u/Fuzzywraith Sep 14 '26

So you’re saying the end all be all of meaning in life is owning up to the contracts you sign to giga corps?

3

u/StrippinChicken Sep 14 '26

Which im sure he did with macklemore as well..... you can only affect change by hurting companies economically. Cancelling the tour would hurt livenation economically. Giving into their demands of political censorship is just doing what they want and sacrificing your own morals, as well as betraying a foundational principle of creative arts: freedom of expression

4

u/foundinwonderland Sep 14 '26

Cancelling the tour would likely NOT hurt livenation one bit because they will collect their cancellation fees and contractual fines from Sheeran and continue on like nothing happened. Contractually, that economic burden would never fall on livenation, by design.

3

u/Money-Bicycle-2883 Sep 14 '26

It would hurt all the workers a hell of a lot more than livenation

4

u/DrQuantum Sep 14 '26

Hurting workers is actually also part of disruption. You need people angry to enact change. Thats partially why America can’t address problems effectively is we have diluted what resistance looks like.

2

u/Money-Bicycle-2883 Sep 14 '26

Protests need to visibly affect people rather than behind closed doors. I don’t think ed canceling would hurt anyone involved except his people. I don’t disagree at all on the morality of this and he’d set a good example by standing up of course and not taking sides is bs.

5

u/ginjarooo Sep 14 '26

Sounds good from your reddit couch. Much harder when you have to go look those people in the face or be the one pulling the trigger on the reason why they arent getting a paycheck they need to cover their bills.

4

u/StrippinChicken Sep 14 '26

Not having a paycheck temporarily is quite small compared to being a child that's bombed. But hey, I only work in public service making below the poverty line in salary to purposefully not work for a shitty corporation and to instead work to better the lives of people by administering social services. What do I know about morals?

2

u/ginjarooo Sep 14 '26

Ah yes. Forgot that means youre qualified to consent for the rest of the population that has to deal with consequences of missing a paycheck.

Idrc about your nonsense whataboutism comparison to try to justify the experience of becoming homeless, going hungry, missing a month of medication or some other adverse effect of missing a paycheck. These are all shitty things to experience. Just because there are people experiencing worse doesn't mean we should use it as justification to be okay with experiencing things like this.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/DrQuantum Sep 14 '26

You’re really proving my point that many people are weak and don’t know what resistance or sacrifice looks like. This argument is used daily to allow for untold atrocities across the long term.

Could I not pose the same question to you on Palestine? People think it’s really easy supporting Israel’s occupation because they don’t have to face any of the consequences.

1

u/ginjarooo Sep 14 '26

People being afraid to go hungry or homeless isn't weak and sure as shit isnt the reason we are in the mess we are. This is peak gaslighting/victim blaming.

Not even sure what straws you are even attempting to grab with the other half of your comment.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/jonsnowme Sep 14 '26

The Tour, aka Ed and his team, were cowards.

8

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26

LN owns many venues (hardly the majority), which is what I assume you're inferring.

However, this is a stadium tour. LN does not own a single NFL stadium. Most of these stadiums are owned by cities or some kind of qusai municipal entity.

The claim that its "venues" requiring this is fishy. My guess is that it's Ed Shernan or his management.

6

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

How is it "fishy"?

4

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26

That "the venues" were the ones requiring this. You're telling me every one of these stadiums which are owned by various city governments, stadium authorities, and private groups all decided Macklemore couldn't perform? That doesn't sound plausible to me. Sounds like they just decided to shift the blame.

9

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

Which is why it is far more likely that Live Nation had a hand in it, and Ed Sheeran's people are playing technicalities since, to them, Live Nation represents the collective of the venues.

5

u/Middle_Run_6864 Sep 14 '26

Also, like these places care what’s happening in the show as long as they get parking fees and concessions.

“Yeah, we’re going to cancel your show and lose out on all of this money because one of the biggest names in music has an opening act who says Free Palestine.” It’s hard for me to believe without proof.

3

u/Snlxdd Sep 14 '26

LN full on promotes a lot of pro-Palestine artists (Hozier, Billie Eilish, etc). Makes no sense they would pull the plug on ticketing for an AEG artist at a venue they don’t even own when they’re happy to run tours for people who are just as outspoken.

Money is money.

2

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

Those are huge headlining artists who drive ticket sales.

Macklemore as an opener in 2026 is not.

1

u/Snlxdd Sep 14 '26

Well, Macklemore just clarified it was the owners, headed by Kraft.

So is he lying?

1

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

Did he post proof? Not saying that he's lying; but that's not proof.

Also both things can be true.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Could be Live Nation. Could be Ed Shernan and/or his management. Could be a Messina, the actual promoter doing this tour. Could be a requirement of a contract with a sponsor of the tour.

We really don't know who it is specifically; it just doesn't seem plausible that it's a collection of entities that are each only relevant for one stop on the tour.

6

u/OuterWildsVentures Sep 14 '26

USA doesn't own the venues on their own land it seems.

3

u/LemDoggo Sep 14 '26

What? What are you talking about

2

u/Jerry_From_Queens Sep 14 '26

LiveNation doesn't own a single venue in the list of the remaining shows on the tour - so if "notified by venues" is the reason, then it has nothing to do with LiveNation.

The upcoming stadiums are, however, largely owned by the public. Philadelphia, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Arlington, Tampa are all publicly-owned stadiums. Foxborough, Charlotte, and Ft. Lauderdale are all private / tribal owned.

2

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

Live Nation is doing all the ticketing for his tour and can strongarm venues into compliance, but go off fam

1

u/Jerry_From_Queens Sep 14 '26

Oh I totally agree with you! But when I see how many stadiums are publically owned, it makes me wonder which asshole government official is getting involved! Like the stadium in Tampa is owned by Hillsborough County - so he never had a chance there.

1

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

I sincerely doubt that county officials are getting involved in who performs at a "publicly owned" venue in the county lol

0

u/redline314 Sep 14 '26

Probably none. Same as others, I suspect live nation.

0

u/jake3988 Sep 14 '26

Who owns/controls ticketing at the majority of venues in the USA?

Again, live nation/ticketmaster owns VERY few venues. They own the house of blues chain and they own/operate about a dozen large outdoor ampitheatres. That's about it.

9

u/EuphoricMoose8232 Punk Rock Sep 14 '26

They own well over 300 different venues. Google says 390. They went on a shopping spree a few years ago and bought a lot of midsized venues all over the country

7

u/Twiddle2332 Sep 14 '26

Based off of my one second google search they appear to own/manage 64-70% of all top grossing venues.

5

u/AlleywayPimpin Sep 14 '26

Their own 10k filling says they own, operate, or have an equity interest in 460 venues globally.

4

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

This is fucking nonsense. They own around 2/3 of the mid to large venues in the USA which aren't sports stadiums...they have a HUGE amount of influence by having such a huge market share. Nearly 400 venues as of 2026.

0

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26

Google tells me they own or control ~150 in North America. More than "very few" but hardly a majority.

4

u/juliuspepperwoodchi Sep 14 '26

It's more than double that, quit listening to Google AI summaries.

Outside of sports stadiums, they own a huge chunk of the mid/large venues in basically every major market in the country.

0

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26

No, it's ~150 in North America, as I said. You're probably looking at the global number, which is approx. doubles the total. Google referenced their annual report to get that number. Not sure what the problem is.

In any case, hardly a majority of venues, which is all that I claimed.

1

u/Snlxdd Sep 14 '26

Own and control are very different.

They count “control” as venues that LN has service/ticketing agreements with.

So LN doesn’t own any of the major sports stadiums/arenas, but they do have contracts in place with them. Similar to concessions like Aramark.

4

u/RedApple655321 Sep 14 '26

Sorry, the specific term was "own and controlling interest," which I take to mean venues they own or own a majority of.

It's more than just ticketing agreements. That number is estimated to be 7k.

1

u/BeekeeperZero Sep 14 '26

I know this one. Aliens.

1

u/PyroIsSpai Sep 14 '26

We should know what venues owned by whom.

1

u/pterodactyl_speller Sep 15 '26

Cancel culture is terrible guys, unless it's brave people like Robert Kraft doing it.

1

u/mrdannyg21 Sep 14 '26

That assumes they actually wouldve followed through. Threats like this get made all the time, whether the venues would actually have been willing to lose all that revenue is a different question. Obviously the tour people felt the path of least resistance was to ditch him, but that doesn’t absolve them of responsibility for the decision.

1

u/Any_Mortgage_9890 Sep 14 '26

Who owns/controls ticketing at the majority of venues in the USA?

https://giphy.com/gifs/BPTJJphmYwwhrpiX2W

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '26

[deleted]

→ More replies (14)

31

u/Colombia17 Sep 14 '26

They’re not owned by LiveNation but if any of these venues where to go against LiveNation wishes all the sudden they’ll notice big acts skipping them

10

u/beenhadballs Sep 14 '26

Youd be surprised how many venues are actually owned by livenation that just white label, with no signs pointing to it. In the last 6 years a ton of privately owned and operated venues sold off but nothing has changed publicly.

1

u/Orlen86 Sep 14 '26

The phrase is "all of a sudden"

44

u/QuadCityDJsTheTrain Sep 14 '26

Ed's promoter is Messina Touring(same as Taylor Swift), they're an AEG Partner. Some of the dates may be produced by Live Nation for one reason or another.

7

u/EmotionalInternet896 Sep 14 '26

It’s the Messina Group

3

u/tunegoon Sep 14 '26

It’s not, Ed is promoted by AEG/Messina

2

u/poppleca1443 Sep 14 '26

Even if LN doesn't own the venue, they often control all ticketing rights, so they have a lot of power as a non-owner

2

u/andreasmiles23 Sep 14 '26

Sure, the stadiums are owned by someone else but LN has a monopoly as the promoter for such tours. The only way a blanket ban like this makes sense is if a central agency made that call. In this case, it’s pretty obvious who it is.

Which shouldn’t shock anyone given that this isn’t the first time LN has caught heat for supporting the genocide.

2

u/thr0war0seaway Sep 15 '26

Where did you find that it was Live Nation promoted? Because I saw that the promoter of Sheeran's Loop Tour is Messina Touring Group which is a subsidiary of AEG Presents, Live Nation's biggest competitor.

1

u/Candid-Mulberry8359 Sep 15 '26

Oh shit, google betrayed me earlier. I’m sorry. They are just ticketing the event.

1

u/Speaker4theDead8 Sep 14 '26

They don't own the venues per se, but if they weren't booking and promoting shows in those venues, there would not be a venue.

1

u/whycook_ Sep 14 '26

Live nation was almost dissolved by the government specifically for running a monopoly in the way you're trying to describe. Its likely that both the venue and the promoter are owned by Live Nation

1

u/Practical_Virus5794 Sep 14 '26

This isn’t a Live Nation show

1

u/thisguyfightsyourmom Sep 14 '26

Live nation absolutely controls venues, the larger the venue, the more leverage they have.

1

u/hatesnack Sep 14 '26

A ton of venues ARE owned by live nation, and the ones that arent are forced to play by their rules or get excluded from future tours and revenue.

Id love to see live nation get busted like the monopoly they are, but all they gotta do is pay trump his ass kissing tax and they can do whatever they want.

1

u/Meh24999 Sep 14 '26

Technically not owned by same people for legal reasons but they're run by same people. The entire ticket master system and venues is a huge scam.

1

u/Straight-Bet1 Sep 14 '26

LiveNation is the exclusive booker for these venues.

They don’t own the venue, but they’ve still monopolized the concert portion of a stadiums usage.

1

u/Fit-Nose3613 Sep 14 '26

Live Nation owns more venues than they let on. Some are branded Live Nation, but others aren't. So, they own some of what people perceive as their "competition." When people try to avoid LN-branded venues, they often still end up at LN-owned venues without knowing it

1

u/beerbrained Sep 14 '26

Live nation owns hundreds of venues, and forces "independent " venues into exclusive contracts with their monopoly powers. They pull the strings.

1

u/xochidreams Sep 14 '26

It’s Messina group which is not LN. Shockingly enough.

1

u/finny_d420 Sep 14 '26

Ed Sheeran has MTG (Messina Tour Group) as the tour promoter.

1

u/WhiteWinterRains Sep 14 '26

Unfortunately this is something that could probably do with a real investigation because wiht venue cancelations like this there's probably some behind the scenes influence. Not that it's big enough news to warrant it tbf.

Like obviously this isn't being done to avoid bad press, but there's probably one or two people or orgs that indirectly control all the venues, just because it would be really surprising in a place as corrupt and monopoly filled as the USA to have a bunch of truly independent venues that can just do what they want.

Organizations like live nations also absolutely have enough influence to make these venues do whatever they want with a few back channel emails in most cases unless some billionaire who owns a cluster of them decides to put their foot down.

1

u/SteveEcks Sep 14 '26

No but those venues are owned by companies with lots of money, therefore likely tied to Israel in lots of ways.

1

u/thisilea Sep 14 '26

live nation owns about half of the big venues nationwide

1

u/FinalFlashMan Sep 14 '26

>But the Venues are not owned or operated by LiveNation.

Lol, sure they're not.

1

u/Rebal771 Sep 14 '26

When they effectively own all of the high-end shows occupying their calendars due to being a regional/national monopoly, your facts are also dishonestly omitting important information that implies a different form of “ownership” or who “operates” the venues.

Being technically correct on paper doesn’t mean actually correct in motion or in practice.

Yes, in fact, LiveNation does “own” and “operate” these venues. Hence the problem.

1

u/atom138 Sep 14 '26

Does live nation own any venues? I thought what you said in your edit was the general consensus whenever Live nation is mentioned.

1

u/Roenkatana Sep 14 '26

Live Nation doesn't need to own the venues, if the venue doesn't do what LN tells them to do, LN drops them and the venue basically dies overnight. It's called a soft monopoly, the corporation doesn't own the supply chain, but it owns the product and therefore the means of distribution.

1

u/RecordGood4 Sep 14 '26

Live Nation owns venues

1

u/TheRedSkittle Sep 14 '26

Apparently all the venues these concerts will be held at are owned by the NFL/MLB. So of COURSE they’d tell Mack to kick rocks. Can’t get more Trump sycophantic than sports team owners. Maybe tech bros.

1

u/DRanged691 Sep 14 '26

The venues aren't technically owned by LiveNation or Ticketmaster, but they do have contracts with the venues that include exclusivity deals that make the venues somewhat beholden to the whims of said ticket brokers.

1

u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26

Livenation is known to blacklist artists from performing ever again if you disagree with them, live nation concert or not. They have people dedicated to ruining your career. Not sure they're involved in this decision, however. If you own a large venue like this kraft one, you have some room to stand up against livenation/Ticketmaster

1

u/shewy92 Sep 14 '26

The venues use LiveNation/TicketMaster to sell tickets tho. Liberty Media could tell the venues not to allow a pro common sense artist in their building the venue or else they won't process the sales

0

u/Imthewienerdog Sep 14 '26

Promoted = owned, live nation just can't use thier name anymore but they absolutely still control it.