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Tied Selling by Any Other Name

When bundled power starts to erode real choice

In Canada, we call it tied selling: when a customer is pressured, induced, or effectively required to buy one service as a condition of accessing another. 

In the United States, the language may differ: monopoly conduct, retaliation, bundling, anti-competitive leverage. But the underlying behaviour is often the same. Power in one service is used to influence decisions in another.

The recent U.S. verdict involving Live Nation and Ticketmaster offers a useful comparison for Canada’s event industry. At its core, the case is not only about ticketing. It is about leverage. It is about what happens when dominance in one area becomes pressure in another, and when the real message to the customer is no longer, “Choose the best service,” but, “Choose the whole bundle, or pay the price elsewhere.”

That pattern feels familiar in Canada’s event venues.

In event venues, the issue is not always a written ultimatum. Often, it is subtler than that. Use one provider in the preferred category and the economics of other categories change. Decline one service and another becomes more expensive, less flexible, or less accessible. The bundle may not be mandatory on paper, but in practice the cost of independence rises quickly.

That is where tied selling stops being theory and starts becoming market reality.

Why it matters in Canada

This issue should matter deeply in Canada for two reasons: foreign ownership and publicly funded facilities.

Foreign ownership is not inherently wrong. But when dominant positions are held by organizations backed by capital and decision-making rooted outside Canada, the question becomes larger than competition alone. Where do profits go? Where does influence sit? Who ultimately benefits from market control?

In industries tied to public life, civic gathering spaces, and cultural activity, those questions matter. When dominance rests with firms whose ownership and priorities lie elsewhere, Canadian companies lose room to grow, domestic expertise has less room to scale, and more value created here is extracted rather than reinvested here.

That is not just a competition issue. It is an economic sovereignty issue.

Canada’s competition framework recognizes the underlying principle: markets work best when buyers can choose services on their own merits, not under pressure created by cross-category punishment.

Why public facilities deserve greater scrutiny

The concern becomes even sharper inside publicly funded facilities.

Where taxpayer-supported venues, public institutions, and convention centres are involved, transparency and accountability should be paramount. These are not ordinary commercial environments. They carry a public obligation to steward assets responsibly and ensure procurement decisions can withstand scrutiny.

If tied selling, retaliatory pricing, or cross-service leverage distorts real choice in those environments, the issue is not only competitive imbalance. It is a failure of public accountability.

The question every buyer should ask

Are you choosing a partner because they are the best at what you need, or because declining one part of their offer makes the rest of your event more difficult or more expensive?

That is the distinction that matters.

A healthy market should reward excellence, innovation, service, and trust. It should not reward the ability to quietly raise the price of dissent.

The broader lesson

The significance of the Live Nation decision is not simply that one company lost. It is that a broader principle is being recognized: bundled power can shape markets long before anyone calls it by name.

Healthy industries need real competition, meaningful procurement, and room for clients to choose best-in-class partners without fear of commercial penalty elsewhere. They also need a Canadian marketplace where domestic capability can grow and public institutions remain genuinely accountable.

Power becomes problematic when it is used not to earn more business, but to make alternatives more painful. It becomes more troubling still when that power drains economic strength away from Canada and takes root in publicly funded spaces where transparency should be non-negotiable.

In live events, as in many industries, the future should belong to companies that win because clients want them, not because the cost of refusing them has been engineered too high.

That is better competition. Better business. And, in the Canadian context, better policy too.

This article is in support of CAVPA’s efforts to shine a spotlight on Canadian Publicly Funded Facilities.  Public venues. Fair competition. Canadian value.

Kyle Brooks

Chief Executive Officer