Tampa mentioned in evidence being considered in Live Nation & Ticketmaster antitrust lawsuit
TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa is at the center of an antitrust lawsuit as a judge is set to decide if messages between two Live Nation employees are admissible.
These messages were sent privately between two employees over Slack.
What we know:
There they were discussing people attending concerts at Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheater and messages show the employee calling customers "so stupid" and acknowledging prices as "outrageous."
These messages could become evidence in the antitrust lawsuit between Live Nation & Ticketmaster and 39 individual states that are suing the conglomerate.
Florida is helping to lead the charge and is listed as one of 11 leading states in the lawsuit.
"Live Nation has some ties with the venues and those relationships and those connections are pricing out folks and are kind of prioritizing the ticket sales to entities that resell them," said Charles Gallagher, an attorney at Gallagher & Associates Law Firm.
RELATED: FTC sues Ticketmaster and Live Nation over ticket resales, alleges 'deceptive' pricing
What they're saying:
Tom DeGeorge is the owner of the Crowbar, a small Tampa music venue in Ybor City. He is an advocate for small venues.
"I was just really glad we were able to get the states to take up this fight so it continues and doesn't get, you know, basically just thrown under the rug," DeGeorge said.
The antitrust lawsuit comes after the so-called ‘disastrous’ ticketing experience for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.
READ: Taylor Swift brings 'joy and kindness' to Florida children's hospital during visit
"When they went ahead and prohibited regular folks from getting tickets on a normal course, that became a predatory antitrust type practice," Gallagher said.
Local impact:
Local businesses said the ticket model is squeezing them out of business.
"If you're getting squeezed, it's hard to survive," DeGeorge said. "I think most small businesses right now are already struggling from inflation."
DeGeorge just announced he will be closing after 20 years in business.
"When there is a settlement, we'd like to know how that money is going to be distributed back to the venues that were hurt, to the fans that were hurt, to the artists that were hurt," DeGeorge said.
Most importantly, DeGeorge said he wants to see an end to these practices.
"We'd like to Live Nation and ticket master broken up. We'd like the see a cap on resale. We'd like to see secondary and predatory ticketing made illegal," DeGeorge said.
The other side:
The legal team for Live Nation wants the messages disqualified from the trial because they said it was banter between two personal friends who do not work together and not company policy.
Live Nation did add in their statement, "Because this was a private Slack message, leadership learned of this when the public did, and will be looking into the matter promptly."
The Source: Information in this story comes from interviews done by Fox 13's Danielle Zulkosky.