The music industry, and in particular the recording and publishing sectors, has historically been controlled by a handful of large firms. In recent years, this tendency towards concentration appears to have spread to the promotion sector as well. Using a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) together with other North American tour industry figures, this study investigates the impacts of rising concentration in music promotion between 2010 and 2019. The results show a steady rise from moderate to high-level concentration over that time frame in large part driven by Live Nation alone. This rising concentration was found to be associated with higher prices for fans, bigger productions, less risk taking from promoters and more homogenous offerings, consistent with known monopolistic behaviours. Implications for theory and policymakers are suggested in closing.
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Dubois et al. (2024) studied this question.
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