Jul 18, 2025
On July 15, The Capitol Forum held a conference call with Tommy Dorfman, a former music club promoter from New Jersey and current CEO of Juice Entertainment and RD Enterprises, to discuss potential breakups of Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter. The full transcript, which has been modified slightly for accuracy, can be found below.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Good morning, everyone. And welcome to our Conference Call on Proposed Breakups of Live Nation/Ticketmaster. I’m Teddy Downey, Executive Editor here at The Capitol Forum. And with us today is Tommy Dorfman who was a music club promoter and is now CEO of Juice Entertainment and RD Enterprises. Tommy, thanks so much for doing this today.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Well, thank you so much for having me on. It’s an honor. I love the work you guys do.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And before we get started, I just want a quick note for the attendees. If you have a question, submit it in the chat pane or you can email us at editorial@thecapitolforum.com. And we’ve already got some questions from the audience, but I would love to just go through your background first. You were a club promoter. You have been in litigation for 14 years, 15 years?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Coming on 15 years.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Coming on 15 years against Live Nation. Tell us what happened. Tell us the experience about your litigation. I would just love to hear that whole story before we get into the NEVA proposal on the breakups.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Perfect. Just a little bit on my background. I was passionate for music at a young age. I got into the nightclub business by actually throwing house parties. I rented houses and threw house parties just to survive. I’m from New Jersey. I built myself, over time, with a lot of hard work and a lot of hard work from my team. Over the years, I built myself to one of the largest EDM promoters in the East Coast. It was called House music back then before it was cool.
So, I built myself into one of the largest promoters, for over 15 years, ran events through the Jersey Shore, New York, North Jersey, Miami. I built myself up to the top I could in the business. We had the number one sound system in the world.
I had the number one sound system in the world.
I was featured in a lot of publications. And then I hit a plateau. For me to get any bigger, I needed to get involved in the festival industry. And in 2010, there was an EDM boom. I saw it was coming. I predicted it.
So, I got involved in the festival industry so I could move up in my career as the evolution of a promoter. And I made a deal with the State Fair of Meadowlands, a 10-year contract to exclusively put on all EDM and all concerts. And I was looking to put on the biggest EDM festival on the East Coast, kind of similar like in the West Coast to like the Electric Daisy Carnival back then. Everything was going great. A company, Live Nation, found out about it. It came in, destroyed my festival, wiped me out and wiped me out of the industry.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Tell us a little bit more about how that happened and how they were able to do that.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, so I didn’t even actually know who Live Nation was. Back in that day, they were never involved in house music, EDM. I just thought they kind of did rock and roll.
They came in. It was kind of like a multi-pronged attack. They came into all my partners. The owner of the State Fair of Meadowlands, came in, kicked me out of my contract, kicked me out of the festival. They went to the Sports Authority that’s the owner of the Meadowlands. If you’re from New Jersey, anybody would know, but for the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Bad mouthed me to the powers that could be to kick me out. Then they went to the—
TEDDY DOWNEY: So, these are the owners of—so the Meadowlands like where the Giants play. So, there’s a complex of—there’s the stadium and then other facilities there and the owners just wouldn’t work with you anymore?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, so I had a contract with the State Fair of Meadowlands. It’s the largest fair in the East Coast. That goes on for three weeks. So, my contract was directly with them.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And any other conduct that you can talk about that Live Nation did?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Absolutely. So, they then went to the talent agencies and the artists and told them if they perform at my festival, they would block their events worldwide. The artists, they’d block their tour dates nationwide.
So, I had a meeting with Live Nation then. I met with the Live Nation top executives. They basically put a gun in my mouth, told me that if I did not partner with them, kick my partners out of the festival, they would fund the whole thing. And to partner with them at 50 percent of it, that they would block all my talent, block all my artists, block all my ticketing.
And I didn’t accept that shotgun marriage. And with the ticketing, they said they would block Ticketmaster. And I was kind of confused because I was like I’ve gotten tickets from Ticketmaster in the past. After I left the meeting, I had to Google it and realized, wow. They bought Ticketmaster.
TEDDY DOWNEY: So, you mean figuratively they had a gun to your mouth. But the threat to you was that they would pull your ticketing and then they would make it impossible for you to work—you wouldn’t be able to work with the artists, the artists or the tickets.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, absolutely. They said, actually, when I tried to defend our relationship with the artists, they used the words, we’ll squeeze them into submission. Block their tour dates worldwide. You won’t get them. You don’t partner with us, it’s over. I didn’t accept that and I got wiped out.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And then you go to court. So, this is 14 years ago. You go to court. You win on summary judgment, is that correct?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Correct. I win on summary judgment on liability, awaiting trial.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And tell us about the discovery. Tell us about the stuff that you can talk about, that came out, that sort of corroborated that in the meeting room, that experience that you had in the room.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Well, first of all, I have all the meeting rooms, I have it on tape recordings. A lot of it’s on Pacer if anybody wants to take a look at it. I have it on tape recordings. I have emails. I have text messages of the Live Nation top executives confessing to these actions that I accused. And if I didn’t have the receipts, I definitely wouldn’t be up here talking about it when I battle a law firm. They have one of the largest law firms with 1,000 attorneys against my mom and pop one.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And this is kind of an amazing story because you still haven’t gone to trial. You’re getting a jury trial at some point, ostensibly. But you don’t want money. What’s the fix here from a litigation standpoint?
TOMMY DORFMAN: So, when I started off on this, I want to be realistic with you, Teddy. I actually wanted money. My EDM festival was looking like $100 million just for that, besides the other concerts that I could put on there. I wanted my festival back. I wanted my career back. But after time passed, after viewing all their internal documents, seeing so much stuff that’s bad and seeing over time and time and seeing what they do to the fans and independent promoters, and especially the fans, now I feel like I just have a moral obligation for them to stop ripping off my kids. If you have kids or other people have kids, people aren’t paying a second mortgage on their house to just pay for a concert ticket. Because what I allege is they’re illegal business practices in a criminal enterprise.
TEDDY DOWNEY: It’s funny because for a living, I cover litigation, antitrust litigation in particular. There are very, very few times when you’ll have a plaintiff that actually wants a breakup remedy. But what we’ve seen recently is that that can go a long way. Epic in their fight against Google and Apple has been very successful in reorienting competition in their space, opening the door for the videogame industry to not have to be subject to the take rate by Apple and Google in their app stores.
So, it’s rare to see this. And I think a very admirable thing. But tell us a little bit about NIVA has a proposal for breaking up Live Nation. Obviously, you could get into that in your court case. But it it’d be great to hear what you think needs to happen in a breakup so that there will be real competition, real opportunity, and less of this kind of coercive power that you see from Live Nation able to just come in and destroy your business essentially overnight.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah. With a click of a button. Yeah. So, it’s basically like the way it is now, it’s basically like a mob run community. If a mob runs a community, you pay them. You do what they say.
So, to answer your question for with NIVA, I feel like I look at it as really like there’s a fruit truck. There’s one banana. That’s Live Nation. Your only choice is you buy that banana. If you’re an artist, if you do not take that banana, or even question expenses for an event, no show for you. If you’re an independent promoter, don’t even look at the banana. You’re done. It’s over. You get wiped out like me. If you’re a venue, you have to pay to play. You have to pay exorbitant rebates to Live Nation. And these are passed on directly to the cost of the ticket prices that get passed on to the fans for the expenses.
So, for me, I feel as a breakup, instead of one fruit truck, what if there’s 10? What if there’s 100? If you have the same banana and you could pay $3 or $7, which one would you want to pay? I’d want to pay the $3.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Yeah, obviously, I’d want to pay the $3. So, let me unpack this analogy a little bit more. So, what would you do to Live Nation in terms of making it so that they don’t just control the fruit truck entirely? Do you need to separate out the ticketing from the event, from the promotion? Do you need to separate out all these business models so that that disintermediates their power across all those different markets? Or what would be the plan to ensure that they can’t run the mob community?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Well, the number one would be breakup Ticketmaster with it because Ticketmaster is their enforcer. They control the data and they control all the money. They can’t run the rebate scheme without it.
But I think Live Nation should be split up into as many pieces. I agree with NIVA, but I think they should even go further, split it into as many pieces as possible. Which having more food trucks, more promoters, more choices for artists where the artists can make the real money they want to make. And then the fans not getting ripped off so they can actually pay realistic prices to go to a concert. So, I think as many ways you can split it up as possible in common economics, more competition, better for business, better for cost of goods.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And in terms of breaking it up into as many pieces as possible, is that because a lot of these markets are local and regional and that you want competition in all of these different areas? How do you think about all these different markets and restoring competition at the local and regional level?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, the local, definitely regional and national. Live Nation owns everything worldwide. So, without splitting them into many pieces, it’s the mob running the whole entire world. It’s the same exact thing. So, if you don’t split them up into a lot of pieces, break up Live Nation/Ticketmaster, you’re going to have exactly what’s going on now and nothing will change.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And in your case, was the Meadowlands a contract? Was that with the municipality or was that with a company? What is on the other end of that? Who owns that venue?
TOMMY DORFMAN: So, it was with the State Fair Meadowlands who owns it. It’s a state‑owned building and facility, but the landlord is the New Jersey Sports Authority, which is a state‑owned agency.
TEDDY DOWNEY: So, I find this particularly interesting, and we did our own investigation into these municipal contracts. You have a contract with the municipality. How is it that they come in and bully the municipality to not work with you? You would think that that would be the one type of place that is not subject to intimidation, right? You’ve got a local government. They ostensibly have a contracting process that would ostensibly be theoretically open to anyone. What happened there? And how did that municipal system end up just coming under the influence of Live Nation?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, so my contract was with the State Fair Meadowlands, but the municipality oversees them, basically their landlord. And I’ve seen it multiple times in information I’ve seen. Live Nation controls these venues, many of them state-owned municipalities. If the venue does not listen to Live Nation, doesn’t give Live Nation the rebates they want, they skip the venue, they’ll skip the show. That’s how it works. Have you ever heard of a Retro in the live entertainment music industry?
TEDDY DOWNEY: No.
TOMMY DORFMAN: It’s basically like the mafia, but the mob doesn’t do this. If the mob runs a community and they come in and tell you, you owe us $1,000 protection to store this month for July, you’re good. Live Nation actually tells state-owned venues, information I’ve seen, you don’t just pay us the rebate that’ll pass directly onto the cost of the ticket price for this show. We want rebates for the whole entire last year. The mafia would never do that. Live Nation makes the mafia, business-wise, like gentlemen and saints.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Just so I stay on this municipality question. Do you think that the breakup is necessary, at least in part, so they don’t—I mean, do they use any lobbying power or is it straight business power all the time when they walk in the room? Do they have lobbyists that angle to get these contracts? Or do they have other influences? Or is it just a straight business proposition? Hey, if you don’t get in line, if you don’t pay us this, we’re going to cut you out of any of our shows.
TOMMY DORFMAN: For the lobbyists, I really can’t speak about except what I just read on the internet and it looks like they’re spending a lot of money right now. That one I can’t really speak about. But for the venues, absolutely.
It even gets down to security. I recently watched the Netflix documentary on Astroworld, which was pretty sad. I’ve seen information where state-owned venues want to have more security, more security for the venues, for the safety for the fans. And Live Nation tells them, you don’t take it like this, we skip your venue. Not even for this show, we skip your whole entire venue for all shows. And I have the receipts for it or I wouldn’t be saying it on here.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Tell me more about that. I haven’t seen this documentary. They even limit the amount of security that a municipality will put at a venue. Why would Live Nation want to do that? How does that end up happening?
TOMMY DORFMAN: I couldn’t tell you exactly in Astroworld except for the documentary that I saw. But I can tell you the information I’ve seen where a venue was concerned that the DA would be coming into their office, that the venue was concerned about the safety of their fans, safety of the fans. And Live Nation told them, this is what it is. Take it or leave it. Now, if you’re the state‑owned venue, your job is to pack that venue or any venue. If Live Nation tells you we’re going to skip your show, which they did, or we’re going to skip all the shows on you, they have no choice.
TEDDY DOWNEY: So, Live Nation provides the security services? Or they just say, hey, we don’t want to pay for more? If you can tell me a little bit more about that interaction, that’d be great.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, as much as I can say that I’m in active litigation. Live Nation venue kicks back. We need more security. This is going to be an issue. We need security over there. We’re afraid of people dying. They tell them, listen, we’re the experts. You follow what we tell you to do or we’re skipping your venue. No show for you. No show for you, and no shows in the next year for you. We’ll skip your whole entire venue.
TEDDY DOWNEY: That is absolutely a scary proposition. And in terms of the evidence that you’ve seen that’s available publicly, that has come out in your litigation, what do you think is the most compelling stuff? I know I’ve seen on your LinkedIn talking about the two sets of books that Live Nation keeps, one that they show the public, one that they have internally showing different profitability. What do you think is the most compelling documentary evidence that’s come out? Obviously, you have your meetings, which we already talked about. That sounds pretty compelling. But beyond that, I would love to share with the audience what you think is the most compelling stuff.
TOMMY DORFMAN: The two sets of books, that was confirmed in the report about the rebates by industry expert Dr. Richard Barnett. He wrote the book on the entertainment industry. If your kids, my kids, anybody’s kids, go to college worldwide, you read his concert promotion book. So,
the report really speaks for itself if anybody reads it.
But to get to the two sets of books, there’s one that is for the public, where it doesn’t have any of the rebates, the kickbacks. I call them illegal kickbacks, I allege, from the vendors that are forced to pay Live Nation, that get passed through to increase that ticket price. Those ones on the public side, you don’t see. The partners, the artists, independent promoters, they never see those. Many times, the shows show massive losses or just minimal gains.
The private side, Live Nation’s books, as Dr. Barnett confirmed, shows massive profits. Live Nation makes money on almost every single show from it because it’s the one that shows the rebates that are kicked to them, which causes the artists to lose money. If I lose money in a show, what are you going to do the next show? I’m going to charge more money, and it’s passed on to the fans.
TEDDY DOWNEY: They incentivize prices going up by the artists because the artists need to find a way to make money.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, I would call it the Enron of the entertainment industry. But it’s such a stupid model that I couldn’t even say so because it’s such a simple scheme.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Yeah. So, we’ve got a bunch of audience questions here. We’ll get to those momentarily. Was there anything else out of the NIVA letter? Actually, let’s talk about this DOJ case. You have your case. We’ve got this DOJ litigation ongoing. Do you think there’s anything that they’re missing? How do you think about that case? Do you think it gets at the heart of the problem that you see from your end?
TOMMY DORFMAN: I fully support the Department of Justice case against Live Nation, fully support it. If you look at my original complaint from almost 15 years ago in the DOJ’s case, it’s actually very similar. I just feel like the DOJ should go even further, and they should get into these illegal kickbacks. That’s my opinion. But I respect their case, and I’m in full support of it.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Obviously, the Trump administration has been settling a lot of merger cases. There’s some ongoing concern that they’ll settle even potentially this case. What’s your pitch to the DOJ about why they shouldn’t settle this one? What’s been the public response to the litigation? What’s the public’s view of Live Nation? Any thoughts on why they should continue this case?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Why they should continue this case? If you care about people not getting ripped off and someone not having to sell a kidney to buy a ticket, have fair competition for independent promoters, and have artists that can get paid the fair wages, which can lower the ticket prices, then they should continue this case. If they care about the fans and they care about the ticket prices, then they should continue it, and I wholeheartedly believe they should even go further.
TEDDY DOWNEY: One thing that comes up a lot, with particularly Live Nation, points to the problems in the secondary market, which obviously also seems problematic. Obviously, two things can be messed up markets at the same time. What’s your take on the secondary market, as both a distraction to the primary market power, but also as its own individual—is it problematic how that works also?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, so first of all, with the secondary market, I agree there needs to be changes made. I agree, it’s problematic. But I’ll put it this way. Do you ever see a criminal go on live TV and say, we extort people. We rob people. We bribe judges. They don’t do so.
So, in this case, the way I see it at Live Nation, the scalpers, secondary market, they’re robbing your money. They’re robbing money out of your pocket, my kid’s pocket, other people’s kid’s pocket, my pocket. But they’re robbing a dollar. Live Nation’s robbing $10 out of your pocket, my kid’s pocket, and all the fans’ pockets every single day. So, I feel like Live Nation just deflects that as a distraction, so they’re not investigated, and so more investigations like I’m talking about don’t happen.
TEDDY DOWNEY: So, you think, just to put a little bit of a number on it, it’s like ten times more important, effectively, to deal with the competition in the primary market versus the secondary market. They’re both problems, but primary’s 10x more important than secondary.
TOMMY DORFMAN: I would say 1,000, but I’d say both should be looked at.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I would love to get to some of these audience questions here. Here’s one question. Live Nation/Ticketmaster, structure and behavior, some people say it reflects wider industry norms. Is that true? I don’t really know what this is getting at, but this is our first question here. Is it industry standard practice that Live Nation engages in?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Since Live Nation came into existence and created their monopoly, yeah, then it’s a norm, because this is what they do. Just like the mob takes over a community, they do it. I guess, to answer that, the best I can. It wasn’t in the scene before.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Yeah, that’s not how it works. Let’s talk about that for a second. Is success really that artists, venues, promoters get to experience fair competition in an open market? What does that look like? How is that different from what they have now? Is it the coercion and the dictating of the market by Live Nation, that defines the market? What did it look like before? What was it like before? How did those markets operate? Tell me about that. Because it’s been so long and I’m not sure I even know what a market without Ticketmaster influence even feels like or looks like.
TOMMY DORFMAN: I can only speak to go back to myself and my history. For 15 years of my career and success, I never dealt Live Nation. It was all people could pick and choose which promoter you wanted to work with, who would put on the best show, who had the best production. It put the cost down for the artist to be able to pick that right show, the one they choose. It’s basically like if you have a hundred fruit trucks, or you have one, and there was many more. Now, it’s just one that you pick from. I can only speak to my past, not the current.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Obviously, tickets were less expensive. You get a lot of concern from artists that Live Nation dictates which shows go on. It makes it harder to break through as an up‑and‑coming artist. You have less of an ecosystem around smaller artists. You were in the EDM space. What was it like for artists coming up in that space and getting to be better known and being able to make a good living? What was that like then versus now?
TOMMY DORFMAN: The artist development was great then. There were so many more artists, so many more opportunities, so many more that you could pick. You want to go for this promoter over here, who has a better cost, puts on a better show. Now, there’s only one. The ecosystem right now is broken. There’s only one, and you have no choice. If you’re an artist now, and you tell Live Nation, I don’t like these expenses. I even question the expenses. No show for you.
If you’re an independent promoter, don’t even look at them. You’re done. You get wiped out like me. You have to take what they tell you. You have no choice. If you’re a venue, same exact thing. You’ve got to pay those rebates, pass it onto the fans with no choice of your own. Or we skip you. That’s really the big change.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I’ve got a question here about alcohol. Is the power of Live Nation over local venues extending to alcohol choices? Are you aware of any state investigations or, I think, Treasury, the TTB, the Treasury Investigative Arm, the tax arm investigation, any alcohol-related investigations into Live Nation’s influence in deciding which alcohol is served at venues?
TOMMY DORFMAN: I couldn’t directly answer that for you. I do not know. But I can tell you, I know they own the water. They control the popcorn stand. They control the hot dog man. You tell the hot dog man how much you pay them, you pay it. They control everything. So, I’m assuming they control all the alcohol as well, but I don’t know that answer.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I’ve got a question here. Again, I don’t necessarily understand it. Relationship with Liberty Live in any breakup? What’s your take on it? I don’t exactly know what that question is. Sorry, I don’t even know what Liberty Live is.
TOMMY DORFMAN: If it’s Liberty Media, that’s the one that owns a large portion of Live Nation and controls a lot of it. Just like the Saudi government owned a lot of Live Nation recently as well. But I couldn’t answer that question.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Yeah, I’m not sure. All right. These aren’t the most straightforward questions. Can you talk about how the merger itself, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, disrupted the business in general, like anything related to what happened following the merger?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, absolutely. So, without Ticketmaster, Live Nation could not operate the rebate scheme that they currently operate against the vendors. They could not put this pressure on everybody else to do so without Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster is like the mob enforcer for them.
Again, it controls the data, controls the money, controls the accounting. You don’t pay one, you pay the next time. They can see everything, what’s going on with it. If you’re a promoter, you’re paying for a show, you do it with Live Nation or not even through Live Nation, Ticketmaster gets all your data. And now they’re using that to compete against you on every show. So, Live Nation and Ticketmaster together. Live Nation couldn’t run their rebate scheme without Ticketmaster.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I’d love to talk a little bit more about the rebate scheme. So, we spent a lot of time—it’s just hard to track the money, right? Because, like you said, there’s these two books. So, from the public standpoint, it’s hard to track the money. Tell me more about how those rebates work and how they are used to exert so much control over the business partners that Live Nation deals with.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, so on the rebate side, Live Nation goes to the vendors, Live Nation goes to the venues, says kick back to us this much money. In return, we’ll increase the cost of security. We’ll increase the cost of production of events. And if you don’t give it to us, we skip you. And that cost goes directly to the ticket prices and goes directly to the ever increasing ticket prices. In the venues, if you say no, or the vendors, they skip you. In Dr. Barnett’s report, it’s pretty well written in there, which like again, he’s a leading expert.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And, obviously, you’ve spoken out. You have litigation. We find it very hard to get people to talk about these types of details and these types of agreements. And why do you think that is?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, it’s pretty simple. You speak about them, you’re done. You speak at them, you’re wiped out. Look at me. I’m one of the few that—I’ll be the first jury trial, if I get a trial date, for anti-competitive behavior, Tortious Interference, since Live Nation/Ticketmaster merged.
So, I don’t blame the artists. You speak out. What are they going to put you in—like with the mob, at least you’ve got the witness protection program. With the artists, what are you going to have? An artist protection program? You’ve got to put on shows.
So, nobody can talk. I have people that tell me on the side stuff, but nobody’s going to talk publicly. Look how many artists actually speak publicly. But I don’t blame them because they’ve got to earn their living. This is their money, the promoters. They’ve got to earn a living. If you go against them, like me, you’re wiped out. So, that’s why nobody will speak, I feel. I find it very frustrating just like you.
TEDDY DOWNEY: You bring up the mob a lot. I find myself talking about the mob when I’m talking about monopoly to explain it to people. Why do you feel that the mob analogy makes so much sense? Obviously, we’re talking about coercion and sort of payoffs. But I’m curious to get your sense, like using the analogy of the mob. Why does that keep coming up for you?
TOMMY DORFMAN: So, it relates with me because I’m from New Jersey. In New Jersey, in New York, we’ve got a lot of mafia. I fended off the mafia for over 15 years. I was threatened with guns, literally guns, in my mouth from Jimmy Famularo, mob boss Tommy Gambino choking me out. So, when I see a racket, I know what a racket is.
But you know what? The mob still let me do business. The mob let me continue. Live Nation, they have more power than a mob. They wiped me out. And that’s what they do to other people. People will even speak up these days against the mafia. Nobody will speak up against Live Nation.
TEDDY DOWNEY: They are more powerful than the mob. They are scarier to you. They’re more threatening to you than the mob, Live Nation.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Much more power, unchecked power, way more power. Look at it. Anybody speak up? No. The mob got broken up a lot. You’ve still got some thugs running around. But the Gambino crime family, they’re not what they were. The government came in and broke them up. You got thugs. Thugs lives matter, I guess. But you got a couple of them running around, but they’re not affecting a whole entire community. Live Nation, whole entire industry.
Because the government came in and took them out.
TEDDY DOWNEY: What do you think about the government’s resources? Obviously, historically, you spend a lot of money, the government does, going after the mob, going after the mafia. That’s understood clearly as criminal behavior. Do you think that there should be more resources by the government to be put toward going after companies that are behaving like the mob, that are intimidating businesspeople in a similar way to what you’re saying, where they have more power than the mob?
TOMMY DORFMAN: I would never tell the government what to do. But in my opinion, yes. I would put all the resources in to help break up these monopolies that are affecting people and affecting people. When ticket prices are a thousand bucks and people can’t go to concerts, it’s like you can’t even go to Disney on Ice. You know what I mean? They run everything. So, yes, I think the government should, but I’d leave that in the government’s hands.
TEDDY DOWNEY: We have a little bit of time left. It would be good to talk about this community a little bit more, your understanding of the community. You’ve got a wide range here. You’ve got the customer. You’ve got the paying the ticket price. You’ve got the artists.
You’ve got the venue. What is the role of music in a community? How is sort of this comprehensive domination and control of this industry to you? How does it harm the community? Can you speak to that a little bit?
TOMMY DORFMAN: How it harms the community. Well, first it affects the artists. Then it affects the venues. The rebates kick in. It affects the independent promoters. No competition.
So, artists only have a choice to accept what Live Nation has. And the community, it’s really simple. It just affects their ticket prices. It’s all about the fans. Ticket prices go up, ticket prices go up, and it’s pretty ridiculous.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Well, also, it would seem like you can’t—you were talking about a vibrant artist community. There were a lot more artists. So, fewer opportunities to be an artist. Fewer career paths to be a small business owner. Less competition for shows, higher prices, fewer shows. That all seems like a pretty negative outcome for a community, right? You’re a parent. You want your kid to be able to become an artist, if they’re a great singer, if they’re a great musician. This seems like actually kind of more profound of an impact than just the prices.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Absolutely. Like my son, my oldest son, is 11 years old and supports me. He wants to be a promoter. He wants to run a festival. I told him with Live Nation, you can’t. It’s over. Don’t even try. It affects those effects of having less independent promoters, less artists, less choices, less shows, less choice.
Again, if a show costs—if an Apple costs $7 or costs $3 and it’s exact same Apple, let the artists pick where they go. It creates artist development. How many shows can actually somebody go to when you pay $1,000? How many can you usually want? If there’s more shows, there’s more independent promoters, it causes a vibrant scene.
Besides just lowering the ticket prices, it creates a scene where independent promoters can thrive. Independent promoters can grow. They can expand artists, more artists development. There’ll be more artists. And then the artists can pick where they go. And the artists don’t get stuck with having to do that show, not by choice, but by force. And then again, it then goes to the community where they can pick where they would like to go to and go to an affordable price.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I want to talk about you’re looking for a jury trial. It strikes me that this would not be a great time for Live Nation to be in a jury trial. The DOJ is also asking for a jury trial. Why do you think it’s important to have a jury trial? And what do you think about Live Nation’s current reputation publicly? I know you can’t probably get into the details, but why is it important for you to have a jury trial?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah. Well, as I told you before, Teddy, first, this was an economic thing for me. Now I feel like it’s a moral duty to the public, moral duty to fans, kids, people, that want to be independent promoters, as you just asked. And to not being ripped off. I feel like it needs to be exposed. That’s why I’d like a jury trial.
And you know what? I’ve been waiting 15 years. I know you saw some of my posts on social media. I didn’t post anything—I was very quiet—for 13 and a half, 14 years. I feel like now it’s a moral obligation. That’s why I’m on your interview, to speak to you, because I can’t get a jury trial. I’ve been waiting for that long.
TEDDY DOWNEY: How does it feel to be doing this for 15 years, waiting for justice for 15 years?
TOMMY DORFMAN: It sucks. Being realistic, it sucks. There’s absolutely no reason I shouldn’t be in front of a jury, in my opinion. But I can’t tell you the under workings and the back end of the courts and the politics. I would love to know. But yeah, to me, that’s how I feel.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Do you feel like the delay, these kinds of delays, are helpful, are sort of to the benefit of the monopolist?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Absolutely. Let’s be realistic. Live Nation has unlimited money. Unlimited money, law firm with a thousand lawyers. I have one lawyer, mom and pop shop. I’m battling this for this many years. How many people actually last this many long years? They usually either settle, get wiped out, lose by a technicality, or just throw in the towel and give up. So, with Live Nation, I think they have the perfect strategy. They’re actually winning on it. Because my witnesses—and this is why I’m actually talking to you on this podcast—they’re getting old. And I come from the club world. We’re not vegetarians. We partied a lot. And a lot of these witnesses are getting old. And you know what? I think Live Nation, the only way Live Nation beats me at trial, my witnesses die. And you know what? A supporter of mine, Congressman Pascrell last year, was not a witness, a supporter of mine, he got older. And he was battling Live Nation before I was. And he passed away. So, that’s why I’m actually sitting here talking to you. That’s my fear. That my witnesses die and I can’t even put on a trial.
TEDDY DOWNEY: That’s insane. That’s really insane. You mentioned the DOJ case looks similar to yours in many respects. Do you hear from DOJ or the states at all when they were doing their investigation to learn about how the market works?
TOMMY DORFMAN: That one, respectfully, I can’t confirm or deny.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Okay. And then what else? Anything else that you want to leave our audience with? I mean, we’ve covered a lot of ground. This story really hits home for me. I think about what it’s like to be in a community. I think about how much the live events industry in D.C. has meant to me, the 930 Club in particular, how much of a fight there has been with Live Nation to have independent music here.
But I’ve never heard this story the way that you’re telling it. It’s very moving. Do you have anything else that you want to tell the audience before we let you go?
TOMMY DORFMAN: Yeah, I would like to address Live Nation and Michael Rapinoe. I’d like to tell them you both make so much money. You’re both very rich. Stop ripping the fans off. You can make enough money without doing so. What’s next? You charge for lawn chairs? You charge for everything? Were you going to charge for rent-a-johns? Are you going to charge a dollar? If you need toilet paper, is it going to be $5? Are they going to call it a Rent‑A-Rapinoe? Stop ripping the fans off. Let people afford tickets. Let the scene be vibrant. You can still make enough money. You’re already so much. You have so much money. That’s what I would say.
TEDDY DOWNEY: What do you think of a business model that is sort of—that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, at this point, I mean, we’re so far down this road. But what would be a business model that would be sort of ethical to your mind that they could engage in?
We talk a lot about Big Tech. And they sort of do surveillance sort of advertising, right? Ostensibly, they could just charge a subscription to use their services. And that would be a way to make money. What would be your way of being big in the industry, making money without sort of distorting the incentives in the ecosystem?
TOMMY DORFMAN: There’s enough money to be made. Let multiple ticket companies be involved. Let the independent promoters be more independent. Let them survive. Let them build.
They’ll still make money. They’re not going to make as much as they do now with this, especially if you get rid of what I allege is their illegal rebate system, which I believe I allege is criminal. But more independent promoters, more choices for artists, more ticket companies, besides just Ticketmaster. And let people choose. Let people choose what concert they want to go to. Let artists choose what promoter they want to perform for. And whoever puts on a better show at the better cost, let the artists go there. Lowers ticket prices. It gives the fans more options.
TEDDY DOWNEY: I know I’ve always thought at some level, you’re decreasing the output by so much, right? But the way that the ecosystem is designed now, to your point, you have so many fewer shows. You have so many fewer venues. You just have these big shows. And instead of having tons of smaller shows, people just spend more money on music, potentially. You have more bites of the apple, as opposed to this constrained volume. And then the ever-increasing price for each one. It seems like a bad business long-term, right? You’re suffocating your own industry. How much money can you really skim off the top of that? But I don’t know. Am I crazy to think that?
TOMMY DORFMAN: I don’t think you’re crazy at all. You charge somebody $1,000 for one concert, how many can they go to? Be reasonable. Charge people reasonable rates.
Get rid of those rebates you kick in. Do a fair business. And people can go to more shows.
Besides, you can do more shows yourself, Live Nation. But also, independent promoters can thrive and artists can thrive as well. I totally agree with you.
TEDDY DOWNEY: What do you make of—and this will be the last question. I get this defense a lot, which is, oh, the artist sets the ticket price. Oh, the artist sets the ticket price. What do you make of that defense?
TOMMY DORFMAN: From what I’ve seen, sometimes they do and many times they do not. But when these costs get passed on to the artists by Live Nation, passed on through the rebates, what do you do if you’re an artist and you pack that arena and you make a little money or you have a 360 deal and you make no money? What are you going to do? Gotta raise your ticket prices. I don’t blame the artists. They have no choice. They have no choice. It’s survival.
TEDDY DOWNEY: And that’s because Live Nation controls the underlying costs of everything.
And so, in order to make money, the artists have to continually raise the price because of all those rebates.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Absolutely. And all those rebates are passed through directly to the ticket prices. With then in return, if I’m the artist, I’d raise my prices also. I don’t blame the artists. What are you going to do? Lose money?
TEDDY DOWNEY: Yeah. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation, Tommy. Good luck in your litigation. I hope you are able to get a jury trial in the near future, at least an announcement. I mean, that sounds—15 years is a long time to wait. Good luck with that. Thank you so much for doing this. It was really a pleasure to hear your story. I’m sorry you’ve been through so much and had to go into an entirely different career. But I know over at The Capitol Forum, we’ll be interested in following how the trial goes.
TOMMY DORFMAN: Absolutely. And Teddy, thank you so much for having me on. And thank you for letting me tell my story. And I appreciate it. And I love the work you guys do. And thank you so much.
TEDDY DOWNEY: Thank you. And thank you to everyone for joining the call. This concludes the call. Have a good one. Bye-bye.
