Rolling Stone has confirmed that concert-industry giants LiveNation and Ticketmaster have finalized plans to join forces for a new company called LiveNation Entertainment. With Ticketmaster’s dominance in the concert-ticket market and LiveNation’s control over many of the biggest concert venues in America, as well as their 360-degree representation deals with musical juggernauts such as U2, Madonna, Jay-Z, and Nickelback, this new company is in a position to have an almost complete monopoly on the concert business. The companies hope to complete the merger by the second half of 2009.
-Sean Highkin
