Music Portland wages ‘existential fight’ against Live Nation

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Want a Live Nation venue in Portland? A non-profit group held their first in a series of events to say, “Not so fast.”

Music Portland held what they called a town hall at the Lollipop Shoppe on the Central Eastside to explain why they are so deeply opposed to the Portland City Auditor Hearings Office’s decision to allow Live Nation/Ticketmaster to co-develop and exclusively operate a music venue with 3500 seats on Southeast Water Avenue.

“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,” said 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 Seat Geek. They own Stub Hub. 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.”

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He said for the past two years, Music Portland has tried to work with Live Nation, Prosper Portland and the City Council but hasn’t had any real results.

“We’ve asked for very specific tangible and we think reasonable bookends on their worst business practices, and for 2 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,” he said.

So, Music Portland challenged the building permits for the Live Nation venues. On September 19, the city council will hear an appeal of that permit, and Dunphy said Music Portland will testify against the venue at that hearing.

Music Portland plans to have a series of events over the next two weeks, including a rally outside City Hall, a “day of digital action,” and reaching out to the board of directors of Prosper Portland. They’ve also added a page on their website for anyone who wants to volunteer and get involved more deeply,

Dunphy said they’re trying to raise $20,000 to cover their expected legal expenses. He said there is no other city that has successfully pushed back against Live Nation.

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“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 Manna from heaven,” he told KOIN 6 News. “But to the local independent industries it’s been detrimental in every community they’ve come into.”

Music Portland, he said, is “not willing to let just anyone come in and mess up for our $3 billion a year independent music industry.”

Other cities who tried to fight back against Live Nation have encouraged Music Portland to fight, Dunphy said.

“We have been hearing from the music industry that this is the fight of our lives. This is truly an existential fight,” he said. “We need to take this moment now to say Portland’s independent music industry is suffering coming out of COVID, and now is not the time to introduce an enormous monopoly into our fragile ecosystem.”

KOIN 6 News will continue to follow this story.

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