Live Nation, the largest concert promoter in North America, told California lawmakers this week that it supports AB 1720 and AB 1349 — the two bills in Sacramento aimed at capping resale profits and reining in speculative ticketing. [1] This is the same Live Nation that a federal jury in New York ruled on Wednesday had maintained an anticompetitive monopoly over big-venue ticketing. [2] Forty-eight hours separated the verdict from the endorsement.

AB 1720 would cap resale markup at ten percent over face. AB 1349 tightens definitions around "ticket" and "rights holder" and imposes disclosure on secondary sellers. [3] Together they are the nearest thing any state has produced to the federal reforms Live Nation has spent twenty years helping keep from Congress.

Why now. The charitable reading is that Live Nation owns the primary market, StubHub owns the secondary, and a cap on resale squeezes the competitor's margin more than it squeezes Ticketmaster's. The cynical reading is the same sentence. "Ticketmaster's competitors in the online resale market are lobbying against the measures," LAist reported Friday. [1]

Rob Bonta, California's attorney general, celebrated the monopoly verdict Wednesday in a statement promising structural remedies. By Friday his office was looking at legislation its largest defendant had just publicly endorsed. The posture is not accidental. When the market leader supports the consumer bill, what it's usually supporting is the bill that freezes the market in its favor.

Fans will pay less next summer if the bills pass. That is real. It is also not the whole story.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles