Live Nation and its ex-chairman, the veteran music mogul Irving Azoff, have quietly secured an iron grip over the lucrative Las Vegas residency of Dead & Company — even as they face growing antitrust heat from the feds, The Post has learned.
Live Nation — sued by the Justice Department last month for allegedly profiting from an illegal monopoly over live entertainment — cut an agreement in January with the Grateful Dead offshoot band and billionaire James Dolan’s Las Vegas Sphere to promote a 24-show residency, since extended by another six dates.
In addition to Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit promoting and selling tickets for the blockbuster act — whose lineup includes superstar guitarist John Mayer and legendary Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart — Live Nation has been selling travel packages through Vibee, a hotel-booking and VIP business arm the company launched last year.
The triple packaging of Live Nation, Ticketmaster and Vibee — which the firm also did with the U2 and Phish residencies at the Sphere in recent months — is the kind of blitz that the DOJ has blasted as anticompetitive, with its explosive suit alleging that Live Nation’s various businesses “work together across the ecosystem” to elbow out rivals, according to critics.
But the aggressiveness with which Azoff elbowed out a smaller vendor in the case of Dead & Company has raised hackles in particular, according to sources.
Over the winter, Azoff — who in addition to being co-manager of Dead & Company is co-founder of the Oak View Group, which advises Dolan’s Sphere arena on sponsorships — made it clear to the band that they needed to hire Vibee to replace 100X Hospitality, sources told The Post.
The latter is a smaller firm which has sold all of the band’s VIP and hotel packages since Dead & Company formed in 2015, sources said.
“I can understand how people could construe this as a power play and I lost,” 100X CEO Daniel Berkowitz told The Post.
The timing of the Vibee deal looks especially brazen, according to sources, as it came just a year after the DOJ’s Live Nation probe gained fresh steam following a botched rollout for tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour that drew complaints over hours-long online queues and exorbitant fees.
100X got the boot despite an eight-year relationship that had spanned hundreds of shows with Live Nation, three sources with direct knowledge of the situation said.
“Even though everything in the Dead world feels like a family, at the end of the day it’s not the music family — it’s the music business,” Berkowitz added.
He added that he understands the reality of the situation and that “anything Irving does is in the best interests of his clients.”
Nevertheless, Lee Hepner, an attorney at nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project who filed briefs in the DOJ’s Live Nation investigation, says the power play could be fodder for the Justice Department.
While the feds’ suit doesn’t mention Vibee, it does call out Live Nation’s cozy relationship with Oak View Group, the venue-management firm Azoff co-founded in 2015 — three years after he stepped down as chairman of Live Nation.
According to the feds, Live Nation and Oak View have informally agreed not to compete in each others’ respective niches.
Instead, the DOJ alleges that the pair collude to steer business to each other — thwarting other — usually smaller — companies from edging in on their turf.
“Oak View Group now operates as an agent and a self-described ‘pimp’ and ‘hammer’ for Live Nation, often influencing venues and artists for the benefit of Live Nation,” the DOJ alleged in its suit.
In the case of 100X, Dead & Company had resisted Azoff’s repeated efforts during past tours to replace Berkowitz and his firm before finally agreeing to make the switch for the Las Vegas Sphere residency, two sources said.
Spokespeople for the DOJ and Oak View declined to comment for this article.
Azoff and Live Nation didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Hepner said regulators do not typically investigate individuals engaging in anticompetitive behavior, but Live Nation is a different matter.
“This is exactly the type of behavior that got Live Nation in trouble in the first place,” Hepner told The Post.
The Vibee hospitality business, which includes special access to the band, can be lucrative — especially in a place like Las Vegas.
One Dead & Company bundle being sold a few months ago by Vibee was priced at $2,834.54 per person — a package deal for the May 24, 25 and 26 shows that included a three-night stay at The Venetian or Palazzo Tower in a luxury king or two-queen suite.
The package also included a luxury car ride to and from the airport, according to Vibee’s site.
The Dead & Company residency is only the latest example of Azoff making money from multiple revenue streams, according to sources.
When Azoff advised the Sphere on booking U2 to kick off the venue’s grand opening with a residency in 2022, Dolan agreed to pay U2 a whopping $10 million to produce its sold-out Sphere shows, The Post reported exclusively at the time.
Days later, Azoff became U2’s manager, replacing Guy Oseary, a source close to the situation said.