After a tumultuous week marked by the Justice Department’s unexpected mid-trial settlement with Live Nation-Ticketmaster, the antitrust trial resumed on Monday with a surprising level of calmness. This time, the case is being driven by a consortium of state attorneys.

The states didn’t initially plan for this outcome. Concerned about effectively managing the case and worried that the jury might be biased by the recent developments, they sought a mistrial. This would have postponed the continuation of the trial indefinitely. However, Judge Arun Subramanian, who appeared frustrated, seemed inclined to reject the mistrial request. After securing the DOJ’s expert witness and quickly assembling a competent legal team, the states retracted their motion for a mistrial. With the introductions of new legal representatives completed, the trial resumed from where it had been paused, featuring testimony that highlighted Live Nation’s competitive tactics, often referred to as the “velvet hammer.”

Judge Subramanian welcomed the jurors back, likening their break to a “spring break,” and queried whether any had encountered news regarding the case during their time off—something explicitly prohibited by jury guidelines. The jurors either indicated no or remained silent. He reminded them that the U.S. government and a few states had settled their claims, but the remaining states were pressing on with the trial. He instructed the jury not to draw any conclusions from the withdrawal of certain parties from the case.

With the DOJ having exited the proceedings, the initial team of lawyers was replaced by a new lineup headed by Jonathan Hatch of the New York Attorney General’s office and Jeffrey Kessler from Winston & Strawn, who is known for representing college athletes in the significant Supreme Court antitrust case concerning NCAA compensation.

The state’s legal team resumed the examination of Jay Marciano, the COO of AEG, a key competitor to Live Nation. While Hatch revisited parts of Marciano’s previous testimony for the jurors, the examination unfolded in a straightforward manner. Marciano shared insights on preferred ticketing models in Europe, where venues typically utilize multiple ticketing services, contrasting with the U.S. trend of exclusive contracts often dominated by Ticketmaster.

During cross-examination, Marciano addressed a previously mentioned incident involving a conversation between the former CEO of Barclays Center and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. The discussion revolved around Barclays’ intention to switch from Ticketmaster, which Rapino allegedly countered by suggesting this change might hinder Barclays’ ability to attract concerts, especially with the new UBS Arena in proximity. Barclays viewed this as a threat to protect Ticketmaster’s interests. However, Marciano explained that as a concert promoter, it’s standard practice to leverage venue competition for better terms, acknowledging that the new UBS Arena might indeed draw artists away from Barclays due to its novelty.

Live Nation’s president of US concerts, Robert Roux, addressed a separate allegation: that Live Nation uses its broad control over US amphitheaters to maintain its monopoly power, leaving no other real options for artists looking to play large outdoor venues. Through Live Nation’s own business presentations, plaintiff attorney Josh Hafenbrack demonstrated that the company made big strides to gain power over four of the top five amphitheaters in the US by ticket sales between 2016 and now. A 2018 presentation showed a largely highlighted list of the top 100 amps worldwide, with the green highlights representing the 62 Live Nation owned, operated, or exclusively booked venues at the time. Since then, Roux confirmed, the company has added several more on that list.

Live Nation denies it acted anticompetitively, and argues the states ignore other kinds of venues that compete for the same shows. But Roux wrote in a 2015 email that many non-superstar artists come in wanting to play amphitheaters — many of which, evidence shown in court has suggested, are controlled or exclusively booked by Live Nation. He also wrote that in those cases, there was “room for tighter negotiations and deals.”

Other emails described how Live Nation thinks about its competition when contemplating otherwise lucrative deals. In a 2018 email exchange, Rapino questioned why Live Nation should give shows to a promoter in the South it considered acquiring, Red Mountain Entertainment, before it actually owned it. Roux wrote at the time that the message to Red Mountain should be, “Either we are together or we are competitors.” He described the approach as a “velvet hammer.” On the witness stand, Roux said the message wasn’t meant to “antagonize” the promoter, but to be firm and send a clear message. In a separate exchange that mentioned Red Mountain, Roux wrote that Live Nation shouldn’t get “complacent” and “let small guys encroach from the edges.” Roux said the comment was a general one, and not specific to the promoter. Live Nation acquired Red Mountain in 2018.

In 2020, Rapino advised Roux against letting Radio Disney and concert promoter Superfly into a Live Nation venue, even after they offered a contract that would yield at least $400,000 in profit for Live Nation for renting out the amp. One executive had raised a concern about allowing a third-party promoter into the amp, even though the “money is great.”

Finally, Roux testified that Live Nation’s profits per fan have multiplied in recent years, with profitability in large amps, a key market in the case, growing more than other venue categories between 2019 and 2024. Before certain costs were factored in, the company made $386 million in profit from large amps in 2024, nearly triple the amount it made in that segment in 2019.

Besides the delay in the case while the states’ team sorted out its next moves absent the DOJ, there wasn’t a noticeable change in the flow of trial and how the new litigators operated, compared to the first week of trial. The case is still expected to run several more weeks, though both sides said they’ve worked to trim their witness lists to help make up for lost time. Toward the end of this week, one of the trial’s most high-profile witnesses is expected to take the stand: Live Nation’s CEO.