Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

Actually yes, some dictionaries (like Merriam-Webster) define fee as "a fixed charge"

If I understand correctly Ticketmaster is still the one creating this problem, they demand exclusivity in their contracts which often means the venue has no choice if they want to participate in a large enough market to continue operating. Similarly artists have trouble securing large venues if not participating in their scheme.

This is the problem with most 'monopolies', they reach a certain critical mass where they can no longer be dealt with on even footing. You are at their mercy as a vendor and as a customer. You can often argue that 'choice' exists, but what choice is it really? Taylor Swift isn't going to come play at our local music house/bar.

“Cartel” doesn’t preclude a single leader. See: Escobar et al.

The only relevant monopoly for a Taylor Swift concert is Taylor Swift. Fans would use any platform to buy to tickets for any venue in any city.

this is all well and good but i know from personal experience that all the secondary marketplaces (stubhub, seatgeek) are pushing to do this (literally lobbying the government actively) because it helps them more easily do their secondary market selling. ticketmaster is a grotesque monopoly, but the secondary marketplaces are worried that ticketmaster will consolidate too much industry control through their vertical integration and make it harder for them to play a role in the industry as well.

the biggest problem in the industry is not necessarily ticketmaster; it's ticketmaster combined with the gigantic, largely-hidden world of ticket brokers who have an entire ecosystem of tools and tactics (as well as relationships with promoters) that allow them to buy tickets to high demand events with greater rates of success than real customers and then jack up the prices astronomically with literally no oversight. breaking up ticketmaster will do little to stop the insanity of the ever-increasing prices of tickets, nor will it make it any easier to get tickets to an event you want to go to. it will just change the balance of who is likely to screw you.

all the secondary marketplaces basically sell the same inventory and mask that fact by pretending they don't. tons of the inventory that exists on them is just arbitrage (or zone) inventory designed to trap you into paying way more than face value for a seat you can't even choose. there's an entire cottage industry (enabled by a little-known player called ticketnetwork) of websites that walk a fine line of pretending to be the official box offices for venues trying to confuse and trap consumers into paying over face value for tickets. the pricing models on the secondary markets (and this includes ticketmaster) are basically designed to obfuscate the fact that they're all selling the same inventory and either boost the upfront cost and reduce fees or show you a cut-rate price for the ticket and then make it up with fees.

i totally agree that it is a Net Good that ticketmaster does not control the venue, the promoter, and the primary sale of the ticket. making it easier for venues to shop around for ticket providers is a Good Thing. but without broader market regulation, the fundamental problem won't get any better.

edit: just to explain this a little further, the fact that the secondary marketplaces aren't the sellers is really the thing that makes everything so complex. the people who control the prices of the tickets on the secondary marketplace aren't the big players (stubhub, seatgeek, etc.) but the brokers who then broadcast their inventory at prices _they_ set to all the marketplaces simultaneously. there's not really an opportunity for competition in this space - brokers actively collude (there's a big paid forum called shows on sale where they all talk about upcoming ticket onsales and trade presale codes and intel for getting tickets.) because of this, "enabling more competition" won't change prices past the time that the primaries sell through their inventory, and the brokers will always have an edge when it comes to gobbling that up.