For years, hating Ticketmaster has felt less like an opinion and more like a personality trait for live music fans around the world. Now, a jury just backed it up.

On April 15, 2026, a federal jury in New York ruled that Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, illegally monopolized the live events and ticketing industry.

The takeaway: the system isn’t just frustrating — it’s been ruled anti-competitive.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The New York Times (@nytimes)

What the ruling actually does

The jury found that Live Nation violated antitrust laws by controlling multiple parts of the live event pipeline at once — including promotion, venues, and ticketing.

But this isn’t the final outcome.

The jury decided liability. The court still has to decide what happens next.

So… what happens now?

Nothing changes overnight.

The case now moves into the remedies phase, where the court will determine penalties and potential structural changes.

That could include:

• significant financial damages
• restrictions on how Live Nation operates
• or, in a more extreme scenario, a forced separation from Ticketmaster

That last option is possible, but not guaranteed.

Live Nation has already said it plans to appeal, which means this could take years to fully play out. In the meantime, the current system stays exactly as it is.

Why this matters for dance music

This isn’t just about ticketing — it’s about the infrastructure behind electronic music.

Live Nation Entertainment has spent the last decade embedding itself directly into the dance music ecosystem through partnerships, acquisitions, and ownership stakes.

In 2013, the company entered a partnership with Insomniac Events — widely reported at the time to include roughly a 50% stake for around $50 million. Insomniac, the force behind Electric Daisy Carnival and other major festivals across the globe, remained creatively independent — but financially tied into Live Nation’s ecosystem.

That relationship still defines a huge portion of the U.S. electronic festival landscape today.

Live Nation has also made direct acquisitions in the space. It acquired Cream Holdings, the company behind Creamfields, adding one of Europe’s biggest electronic festivals to its portfolio.

And that’s just one piece of a much larger strategy.

The bottom line

This isn’t the moment ticket prices suddenly drop — it’s the moment the system gets called out and backed by a legal ruling. For the first time, the frustrations around ticketing aren’t just noise from fans. They’ve been validated in court.

Now the question isn’t whether the system is broken. It’s what happens if it’s actually forced to change.

Spotify Data Reveals 2010s EDM Dominates Coachella 2026 Playlists, with tracks like “Clarity” and “Lean On” leading fan-curated selections

Spotify’s latest data, based on more than 340,000 user-generated Coachella playlists ahead of the 2026 festival, shows how listeners are preparing for the weekend in a way that goes beyond the current lineup. Instead of focusing only on artists set to play this year, fans are adding tracks that were central to the festival’s earlier years, especially from the early and mid-2010s. Songs like Latch by Disclosure and Sam Smith, Lean On by Major Lazer, MØ, and DJ Snake, Clarity by Zedd and Foxes, and Drop The Game by Flume and Chet Faker appear consistently across these playlists. Even without most of these names appearing on the 2026 lineup, their music is still part of how people are getting into the festival mindset, linking the current edition back to a period many still associate with Coachella’s peak years.

The 2010s Tracks Fans Still Add to Coachella Playlists Before the Festival

Looking at the songs turning up most often in these Coachella playlists ahead of 2026, the pattern points back to a short but important period from 2012 to 2015, when electronic music stopped being limited to club crowds and started reaching a much wider audience. Latch by Disclosure and Sam Smith dropped in 2012 and took time to grow, first breaking through in the UK before later becoming a sleeper hit in the United States. That longer climb matters here. It was not a song that flashed and disappeared after one season. It stayed in people’s playlists, on radio, and in DJ selections long enough to become attached to that era in a lasting way. Billboard later described it as Disclosure’s breakthrough single, which helps explain why it still shows up when listeners put together festival playlists now.

@coachella 2016 ➡️ 2026 @Disclosure ♬ original sound – coachella

Clarity by Zedd and Foxes, also released in 2012, played a different role in that period because it reached both pop audiences and dance audiences at the same time. It was not just a festival favorite. It also won Best Dance Recording at the 56th GRAMMY Awards, which gave it a level of recognition few EDM tracks from that period received in the mainstream. Then in 2015, Lean On by Major Lazer, MØ, and DJ Snake pushed that crossover even further. By November that year, Billboard reported that it had become Spotify’s most-streamed song of all time, showing how strongly it connected across streaming, radio, and festival culture all at once. When listeners add those records to Coachella playlists now, they are not pulling from a random nostalgia pile. They are picking songs that marked major turning points in how electronic music reached the public.

@zedd Let’s do it again @coachella ♬ Clarity – Zedd

Drop The Game by Flume and Chet Faker, released on November 18, 2013, adds another side of that story. Unlike Clarity or Lean On, it was not driven by the same global pop exposure, but it still became one of the defining electronic releases to come out of Australia during that period. It reached No. 18 on the ARIA Singles Chart, went Platinum in Australia, and placed at No. 5 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2013. That matters because it shows this playlist trend is not only about the biggest crossover hits. Listeners are also going back to records that carried a different mood and reflected how broad the scene had become by the middle of the decade. Put together, these four tracks map out a period when electronic music was expanding in several directions at once, which is exactly why they still make sense in Coachella 2026 playlists now.

Fans Mix 2010s EDM with Current Headliners in Coachella Playlists

Looking beyond the track selections, the artist data from Spotify shows how listeners are placing different eras of Coachella side by side in the same playlists ahead of 2026. Alongside songs like Clarity or Lean On, the most added names include Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, and Billie Eilish, artists who have held headline or closing positions at the festival in recent years. Their presence next to early 2010s EDM records is not accidental. It reflects how listeners combine tracks from an earlier EDM-focused period with artists who now represent the current direction of Coachella.

That combination links back to how the festival itself has shifted over time. During the early 2010s, electronic acts such as Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia, and Avicii were regularly scheduled in major evening slots, with tracks like Clarity or Lean On appearing across multiple sets in the same weekend. In more recent editions, those same time slots are more often occupied by artists like The Weeknd or Billie Eilish, whose performances draw different audiences and change how the night unfolds across stages. When listeners include these artists in the same playlist, they are not separating past and present, they are arranging them in a way that reflects how they understand the festival across different years.

The way listeners approach these playlists ahead of Coachella 2026 also reflects how preparation for the festival now extends beyond simply following a lineup. With Spotify’s collaborative playlists, groups attending together can add tracks into a shared list before the weekend, which often leads to a mix that includes both 2010s EDM and current artists without one replacing the other. At the same time, prompt-based playlists give users a starting point tied directly to the lineup, using requests such as creating a playlist focused on artists they already follow alongside new names they plan to see. These features do not determine what listeners choose, but they make it easier to combine past listening habits with current plans, which helps explain why tracks like Clarity or Lean On continue to appear alongside artists performing at Coachella today.

This pattern across Spotify playlists ahead of Coachella 2026 points to something more specific than nostalgia. The continued presence of 2010s EDM is tied to how listeners remember the festival at a time when electronic music held a central role across major stages, while the inclusion of current headliners reflects how the event has expanded in recent years. When both appear in the same playlist, it is not a contrast for the sake of it, it is a way of bringing those two periods into one listening experience. As fans prepare for Coachella, these playlists become less about following a lineup and more about reconnecting with the tracks and artists they associate with the festival, which explains why songs from the 2010s continue to sit alongside today’s biggest names.

The Psychology Behind Why Music Feels So Personal explained through how listeners process emotion, empathy, and sensory experience

Psychological research suggests that deep emotional connection to music is closely linked to how people process emotion, empathy, and sensory experience.. A widely cited study published in PLOS ONE found that individuals with higher levels of empathy tend to develop stronger emotional connections with music, independent of broader personality traits. The research moves beyond genre and focuses on how listeners engage with sound, mood, and emotional nuance. In music cultures where progression, structure, and immersion play a central role, such as electronic music, this helps explain why some listeners experience music as something deeply felt, not just heard.

How Deep Emotional Connection Plays Out in Electronic Music

Research linking empathy and emotional processing to music engagement helps explain why certain electronic music experiences resonate more strongly with some listeners. In electronic music, emotional connection often forms over extended moments, not through instant hooks. For example, long progressive sets by artists such as Eric Prydz, Matisse & Sadko, or Lane 8 rely on gradual melodic development, repetition with variation, and delayed resolution that unfolds across time. Listeners who connect deeply to these sets often describe being fully absorbed during build phases, subtle chord changes, or slow transitions, instead of reacting only to drops or climactic moments, with the experience building gradually as the set progresses.

This type of connection becomes especially visible at large-scale festivals and extended club environments, with electronic music festivals providing some of the clearest examples. At events like Tomorrowland, Anjunadeep Open Air, or Afterlife, audiences often stay engaged through long sequences of tracks that evolve over time, sometimes without vocals or obvious peaks. Instead of focusing on individual songs, listeners follow how the sound progresses across a full hour or multi-hour set. Research published in PLOS ONE supports this pattern, showing that individuals with higher empathy tend to process music through internal emotional response and sustained engagement. In electronic music settings, this leads to listeners forming strong emotional attachment to long-form sets, closing sequences, and extended transitions, where meaning builds gradually through sound over time.

Why Extended Sets Build Stronger Emotional Connection

Extended DJ sets create space for emotional connection by giving artists time to control pacing, repetition, and progression in ways shorter slots cannot match. DJs known for long-format performances such as Carl Cox at Club Space Miami, Solomun during open-to-close sets, or Sasha and John Digweed in extended club nights often introduce ideas early and carry them across hours, allowing patterns, melodies, and transitions to settle before shifting direction. In extended DJ sets, this progression becomes easier to follow over time, giving listeners a clearer sense of how the set is unfolding. Instead of reacting to isolated drops or individual tracks, listeners follow a continuous flow through sequencing, subtle tempo adjustments, and melodic progression that develops gradually across the set. As the set moves forward, earlier elements begin to reappear in different forms, transitions feel more deliberate, and listeners start to anticipate what comes next, which strengthens engagement and makes each change feel more meaningful in context.

This approach is also central to contemporary festival experiences. Tale Of Us at Afterlife showcases, Black Coffee during extended festival closings, and Eric Prydz in long-form headline slots are known for sets where emotional impact comes from progression and timing, not constant intensity. In these performances, a track played later in the set often carries more emotional weight because of what came before it. For listeners who connect deeply with music, extended sets allow emotional attachment to build through familiarity, anticipation, and resolution across time. The experience feels continuous, with each moment linked to the next, which explains why many EDM fans describe certain nights, sunrise closings, or multi-hour sets as personally meaningful, not just entertaining.

Deep Emotional Connection Across the Electronic Music Scene Today

Deep emotional connection in electronic music often comes down to time, flow, and how sound is experienced across a full set, not in isolated moments. Extended performances allow listeners to settle into patterns, notice subtle shifts, and attach meaning to how a night unfolds from start to finish. This is why many EDM fans remember specific sunrise closings, long club nights, or festival sets as complete experiences, not just collections of tracks. The connection forms through continuity and attention, making electronic music something that lingers well beyond the final record.

As lineups continue to include more extended sets and open-to-close formats, this way of experiencing music is becoming more visible across the scene. Listeners are spending more time following full sets instead of individual tracks, whether at festivals, clubs, or through recorded live sets online. That shift points toward a deeper kind of engagement, where the focus is not only on what is played, but how it unfolds over time. For artists and audiences alike, it leaves more room for connection to build naturally, giving each set a sense of progression that stays with listeners long after it ends.