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Jon Bellion opened up about his tumultuous contract with Live Nation Entertainment, a company that manages concert ticket sales, during his appearance on The George Janko Show on March 24, 2024. The live entertainment giant was founded in 2010 after merging Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
During the interview, Bellion elaborated on the company's "hard ticket sales" module and how it affected artists.
"You advance me one million and tell me I'm rich to then find out that you're making four million a night. It takes me 36 shows to pay back the one million you advanced me," he explained.
Under the hard sales ticket model, artists are paid either in part or in total from the ticket sales revenue. Bellion added that the company profited vastly from ticket-goers paying for food, parking, and alcohol and that he never saw a dime of that money.
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Jon Bellion opens up on his record deal with Live Nation
Following Taylor Swift's 2023 Ticketmaster debacle during The Eras Tour, Jon Bellion stepped forward to discuss his deal with Live Nation and how it affected his touring.
During the two-and-a-half-hour episode of The George Janko Show on May 24, the singer recalled figuring out how his deal with the entertainment conglomerate worked when he performed at Jones Beach in 2019 for a crowd of 10,000 people. Bellion, who called the show "the height of everything" for him, said:
"Basically, I got to a place in my career, we sold out 10,000 people at Jones Beach, I mean, it was the height of everything for me and it was right around the time I figured out how my Live Nation contract worked. It was right around the time I figured out how my record deal actually worked."
He recalled being wary about the excessive money spent on food and other items while touring, saying that the amount came out of his pocket.
"When you figure that out on the road and you're thinking, "Why did we buy 300 rolls of toilet paper? Why did we have to get, spend this much on catering every day? No one's eating the pizza. We're throwing out pies," Bellion said.
He reiterated that his deal with the company followed their "hard ticket sales" module, meaning he only got paid for the tickets and not for the food, parking, or alcohol purchases made by attendees.
Bellion called out Live Nation's profiting via the "peanuts, parking, and alcohol" strategy, emphasizing the company's aggregated profit was far more than what they advanced the artist.
He also called the advance a "fake loan," saying the company was a monopoly that owned all the venues and profited from food and alcohol. Meanwhile, the artists only gained profit if they sold every ticket in the venue, and could also stand to lose if the company decided to put the tickets on sale, an act that was permitted according to their contract.
On March 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Live Nation Entertainment for allegedly harming key stakeholders. According to Billboard, the DOJ also accused the live entertainment giant of dominating the live music market, demanding the company and Ticketmaster be broken up despite their alliance in 2010.
Live Nation has rejected these accusations, claiming the company was not a monopoly and has achieved its growth by helping artists globally and supporting local economies.
