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Ticketmaster owner Live Nation confirmed "unauthorised activity" on its database after a group of hackers said they had stolen the personal details of 560 million customers. ShinyHunters, the group claiming responsibility, says the stolen data includes names, addresses, phone numbers and partial credit card details from Ticketmaster users worldwide. The hacking group is reportedly demanding a $500,000 (£400,000) ransom payment to prevent the data from being sold to other parties.

The Justice Department sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America and asking a court to break up the system that squelches competition and drives up prices for fans. Filed in federal court in Manhattan, the sweeping antitrust lawsuit was brought with 30 state and district attorneys general and seeks to dismantle the monopoly they say is squeezing out smaller promoters, hurting artists and drowning ticket buyers in fees. Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation Entertainment, have a long history of clashes with major artists and their fans, including...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she would call a Senate hearing to probe Ticketmaster after the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco this week left many fans frustrated and empty handed. This comes as the company canceled the general public sale of tickets originally scheduled for Friday "due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand." Swift fans sought tickets earlier this week with pre-sale codes and credit card exclusives, a rollout that was beset by technical problems. Klobuchar, who chairs a Senate subcommittee focused on consumer protection and anti-trust, said she...

Some of the nation’s most famous corporations, including Lions Gate Entertainment and Live Nation, have not reported compliance with a California law that required boards of directors to meet a diversity quota. The law has just been declared unconstitutional by a Los Angeles judge, and yet a “shame list” remains online for the public to scrutinize which corporations have the most ethnic minorities on their boards.

At least eight people are dead after a crowd surge during the sold-out Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday, the city's fire chief said. Seventeen people were transported to the hospital after the crush, and 11 who were taken by ambulance were in cardiac arrest, Houston officials said. In all, more than 300 people were treated throughout the event Friday at an on-site field hospital. Around 9:15 p.m. local time (10:15 p.m. ET) "the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage," Fire Chief Samuel Peña said at a news conference early Saturday. "That caused some panic,...

Beginning Oct. 4, Live Nation’s fully owned and operated venues and festivals will be requiring all artists and fans to either show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID test, where permitted by law. In addition, all Live Nation employees will also need to be fully vaccinated in order to work at or visit one of its events, venues, or offices.

These training videos are reportedly used at companies such as Dolby, LiveNation, Netflix, Yelp, BuzzFeed, and The New York Times. I can't believe what they put their employees through...

Wallet? Check. Water? Check. COVID-19 test? The pre-concert checklist for music fans is about to get more complicated, as Ticketmaster is planning to check the coronavirus vaccination status of concert-goers prior to shows once a treatment is approved, Billboard reported Wednesday. The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they’ve tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report. The plan, which is still being ironed out, will utilize three separate components, including the California-based company’s digital ticketing app, third-party health information firms like CLEAR...

Bill and Hillary Clinton are going on tour. The Clintons announced on Monday that they would headline a series of live events together -- billed "An Evening with The Clintons" -- across the country in the final weeks of 2018 and into 2019. The tour will provide the Democratic stalwarts with a notable platform weeks after the consequential 2018 midterm elections and deep into 2019, when a number of Democrats will be jockeying for positions in the fight to be the party's standard bearer against President Donald Trump in 2020. The events, which are being produced by tour promoter Live...

...ticket sales for the top 100 touring bands are down 12% this year, Live Nation Entertainment's major executives went on the defensive Thursday, blaming the press for "scaring" artists from touring and arguing that acts need to alter their pricing strategies. ..."The press," (CEO Michael) Rapino said, has "scared about every artist" out of touring in the fourth quarter. A number of major tours have struggled in 2010, including the refurbished Lilith Tour, and once-can't-miss artists such as the Jonas Brothers have been canceling dates... Yet the company's top brass did more than point fingers at the media, and promised...

This could be one of the biggest bombs Live Nation Entertainment ever produced. Minutes after the concert promoter and ticket company told analysts at its first investor day that ticket sales for its biggest acts fell 9 percent in the first half of the year and were likely to see a steeper decline during the rest of 2010, its shares plunged -- tumbling throughout the afternoon until they lost about 18 percent of their value. The bad news rocketed from the stage of Manhattan's Irving Plaza concert hall near Union Square, where the meeting was held, to Wall Street and...

The concert business is supposed to be the music industry's one sure thing. But not this summer. The Eagles, Rihanna and Maxwell have canceled tour dates. A wobbling "American Idol" tour has flooded the market with discounted tickets, and the resurrected Lilith Fair tour has called off concerts from Dallas to Salt Lake City. Even teen idols the Jonas Brothers announced this week that they're scrapping some shows. * * * With the continued evaporation of recorded music sales, acts at all levels of the talent pool must lean heavily on their live-performance earnings. That's forcing artists to tour more,...

Music fans who buy concert tickets during Live Nation's "No Service Fee Wednesday" may be surprised when they check their receipt and see some service fees were charged. Live Nation's announcement for the promotion -- and stories based on their news release -- did not mention the concert promoter's narrow definition of a "service fee." "Fans will still be asked to pay parking fees (usually $6) as well as in some cases facility fees and/or charity fees," Live Nation spokesman John Vlautin wrote in a reply to CNN's request for clarification. Still, the promotion will save consumers several dollars on...