Live Nation Entertainment

Live Nation Entertainment is an American global entertainment company, formed from the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It owns, leases, operates, has booking rights for and/or equity interests in a large number of U.S. entertainment venues. The leadership consists of Greg Maffei (chief executive officer of Liberty Media) as chairman and Canadian Michael Rapino (previously chief executive officer of Live Nation) as president and CEO of the company.

The merger that formed the company was opposed by members of the United States Congress, business rivals, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose members include Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intuit, and eBay.

The merger initially received regulatory approval in Norway and Turkey in 2009. In October 2009, the United Kingdom's Competition Commission provisionally ruled against the merger. On December 22, 2009, the Competition Commission reversed its decision and cleared the proposed merger. The United States Justice Department approved the merger on January 25, 2010, with some conditions to which both parties agreed.

As part of the agreement with governments to merge, Ticketmaster had to sell its ownership in its self-ticketing company, Paciolan and Live Nation Entertainment was placed under a 10-year court order prohibiting it from retaliating against venues that choose to accept competitors' ticket-selling contracts, and it "must allow venues that sign deals elsewhere to take consumer ticketing data with them".

In addition, the new company had to license a copy of its ticketing software to two companies—Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and either Comcast Spectacor or another "suitable" company—so that both companies could compete "head-to-head" with Ticketmaster for venues’ business. AEG was given the option after five years to buy the software, replacing it with something else, or partnering with another ticketing company.

Live Nation Entertainment bought AC Entertainment, a Knoxville Tennessee music company in October 2016.