Western Australian government gives Live Nation Entertainment $8 million to subsidise Coldplay concerts | Western Australia

The Western Australian government has paid millions of dollars to Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiaries over the past four years, including $8 million to subsidise two Coldplay live concerts.

The band performed twice at Perth's Optus Stadium in November, events hailed by the Western Australian government as a major tourism boost.

The state Labor government, led by Roger Cook, has steadfastly refused to disclose how much it paid Live Nation Entertainment, an S&P 500 multinational headquartered in Los Angeles that last year posted a net profit of US$563 million (A$834 million) and claims to produce more concerts, sell more tickets and connect more brands to music than anyone else in the world.

Government documents seen by the Guardian reveal that $8m was paid in connection with appearances by Coldplay, which is promoted by Live Nation Entertainment and is part of its vast stable of stars.

In response to questions from the Guardian, Tourism WA said Coldplay's Perth concerts injected tens of millions of dollars of visitor spending into the state's economy and the decision to award Live Nation $8 million was made after a rigorous assessment, cost-benefit analysis, review and approval process, including review and approval by the Tourism WA board, Treasury and final signature by the Tourism Minister and Premier.

Other documents tabled in state parliament reveal the WA government has paid entities now part of the Live Nation group grants totalling more than $3.5 million to cover financial losses caused by cancelled concerts during Covid.

The Western Australian government's contribution is in addition to $16 million previously reported by Guardian Australia given to Live Nation Entertainment or companies it owns by the federal, New South Wales and South Australian governments.

Most of the grants in all states went to local entities acquired in recent years by Live Nation Entertainment, which last year posted net income of $563 million.

In Western Australia, Mellen Touring Pty Ltd and Mellen Promotions Pty Ltd, trading as Mellen Events, received nearly $1.74 million between them in 2022, according to responses to questions from the Western Australian Legislative Council. Zaccaria Concerts and Touring Pty Ltd received more than $1.81 million in the same year.

All of these companies were represented by a lobbying group called Live Events WA (LEWA), parliamentary responses show. LEWA’s chairman is Brad Mellen, founder and director of Mellen Events, who sold a majority stake in the company to Live Nation in 2021. LEWA’s vice-chairman is John Zaccaria, who sold a majority stake in his company, now operating as Face to Face, to Live Nation last year.

A dominant player in the industry

Australia is one of 40 countries where Live Nation has brought together concert venues and local ticketing companies.

Australian live music industry operators have previously criticised the practice of governments funding events organised by multinational companies such as Live Nation, as well as its vertically integrated business model, in which it owns or manages venues, represents artists and holds exclusive ticketing rights through Ticketmaster.

Live Nation controls some of the country's largest concert venues, including Melbourne's Festival Hall and Palais Theatre, Brisbane's Fortitude Music Hall and Adelaide's Hindley Street Music Hall.

In Perth, Live Nations subsidiary Mellen Events has a multi-million dollar lease with the Western Australian government to stage outdoor concerts at Kings Park, with a capacity of more than 6,500 people.

The lease expired at the end of last year and tenders were launched in December, three days before Christmas.

ignore newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

On March 20, Cook was a VIP guest of Mellen Events for a sold-out Tom Jones concert at Kings Park and was taken backstage to meet the 83-year-old star.

A spokesman said the Prime Minister had had contact with many Western Australian business people and a wide range of West Australians.

Any invitation accepted by the Prime Minister is declared in his register of interests, in accordance with government policy, the spokesman said in a statement.

The government has been asked twice in parliament how many applications it received for the Kings Park contract but has declined to answer, saying the information was commercially confidential because the tender process had not yet been completed.

Cooks' spokesman said tender processes for government-supported events were conducted independently of the Prime Minister and the Tourism Minister, in line with procurement policies.

The Western Australian government will also give Live Nation subsidiary $4.65 million over the next three years to stage a food and wine trade event in the Margaret River. Mellen Events has also secured a $2 million contract to stage a music festival associated with the April 2023 solar eclipse.

Both contracts were awarded through standard competitive procurement processes, Tourism WA said, and were subject to annual random audits.

In the United States, Live Nation's concerts and events are estimated to account for 32.2% of the country's total industry revenue. On the ticketing side, Ticketmaster's market dominance is estimated at around 70%.

The U.S. Department of Justice and 30 state and district attorneys general have alleged in a civil antitrust lawsuit that Live Nation relies on illegal and anticompetitive conduct to exert monopolistic control over the live events industry, to the detriment of fans, artists, small promoters and venue operators.

The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, small promoters are squeezed out and venues have fewer real choices in ticketing services, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said. said in a statement on May 23.

It's time to split Live Nation-Ticketmaster.

In statements published on its websiteLive Nation said the lawsuit would do nothing to lower ticket prices and service fees for concerts, that its net profits proved it did not exercise monopoly power and that there was more competition than ever in the live music industry.

In March, Australian Arts Minister Tony Burke announced a parliamentary inquiry into the struggling live music industry, following a series of cancelled music festivals.

Asked about Live Nation's activities in Australia at an inquiry hearing in Canberra on Friday, the chief operating officer of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said the commission was closely monitoring the US trial but declined to confirm or deny whether Live Nation was under investigation in Australia.

Market circumstances and impacting factors in the US are slightly different to those in Australia, Scott Gregson told the survey.

That said, we see some consistency in the behaviours that are part of this investigation and this action by the Department of Justice and the types of things that we hear in Australia, and we have, both previously and on an ongoing basis, looked at issues as they come to us from a competition law perspective. If your question is: are we getting similar issues? Are we looking? Are we monitoring the action of the Department of Justice? The answer to all of those questions is yes.

Live Nation and Mellen Events did not respond to the Guardian.