Photo Credit: Adam Blank
A non-profit group in Portland, Oregon has held its first of a series of events against the Portland City Auditor Hearings Office’s decision to allow Live Nation/Ticketmaster to co-develop and exclusively operate a venue with 3,500 seats in the city.
The venue would be located on Southeast Water Avenue, but Music Portland is opposed because of Live Nation’s monopolistic practices—which have brought the live music conglomerate under U.S. Department of Justice scrutiny for anti-trust practices.
“Our music industry desperately needs investment. We need mid-size venues. We get skipped over by tours all the time. But who is operating that venue really matters,” says Jamie Dunphy, the Music Policy Council Chair for Music Portland. “Live Nation is the largest media company in the world right now. They own Ticketmaster. They own SeatGeek and StubHub. [DMN Note: They do not own SeatGeek or StubHub.]”
“They own thousands of artist contracts and music venues. And every state, every city that they’ve come into and built, the local independent music scene suffers. They actively predate on local independent businesses, they close local venues. They put local artists into exclusivity contracts.”
Dunphy says for the past two years, Music Portland has attempted to work with Live nation, Prosper Portland, and the Portland City Council—but they’ve made no headway in the discussion.
“We’ve asked for very specific tangible and we think reasonable bookends on their worst business practices, and for two years we have been told absolutely no. They’ve been unwilling to make any concessions about the very clear demonstrated business practices they have in every other major city. They’ve told us explicitly to our faces that ‘we’re the only game in town’ and they don’t have to concede to what the locals want,” Dunphy continues.
Music Portland is challenging the building permits for the Live Nation-owned venue. On September 19, the city council will hear an appeal of that permit, with Music Portland prepared to testify against the venue at the hearing. The non-profit is preparing a series of events over the next two weeks that includes a rally outside of city hall, a day of digital action, and reaching out to the board of directors of Prosper Portland.
Dunphy says the non-profit is attempting to raise $20,000 to cover their expected legal expenses in fighting the Live Nation venue. There is no other city that has successfully pushed back against Live Nation entering the local scene—perhaps the ‘Keep Portland Weird’ attitude of residents will make Portland the first.
“In almost every community they come into, they’re treated as victors. They’re treated as economic development. Nobody’s offering to bring $60 million to a city to build a local arts venue. And to a local elected official, to a local economic development agency, that sounds like found mana from heaven,” Dunphy told KOIN 6 News. “But to the local independent industries it’s been detrimental in every community they’ve come into.”
