Christine Varney, head of the US Justice Department’s (DOJ) anti-trust division was grilled on Thursday, at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Texas, on the body’s approval of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger but her answers gave little consolation to those affected.

The merger of Live Nation, the country's biggest concert promoter, and Ticketmaster, the all-powerful ticketing agency, was approved a few weeks ago by the DOJ. The decision is a controversial one as combined, the two companies create a monolith of unprecedented proportion, one that could potentially dominate every aspect of the music industry, from concert ticketing to artist management.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation heads, Irving Azoff and Michael Rapino, were conspicuous by their absence. South by Southwest representatives said both executives were invited to speak but declined.

Varney's explanation for allowing the merger to go through, albeit with concessions from both companies, was not enlightening.  She said her decision was "constrained by judicial precedent and law" but the most relevant precedent -- the landmark 1948 U.S. Supreme Court anti-trust decision against Paramount Pictures -- she called no longer applicable to today's world. In the '48 ruling, the high court declared that movie studios could not own cinemas and hold exclusive rights on where their films could be shown. The movie companies had to divest themselves of their cinema holdings. "The same factors that led to the Paramount ruling aren't present today," Varney said.

When specifically asked why the new Live Nation Entertainment was not required to divest itself of its management company as part of the merger, Varney said the "only actionable overlap" between the two companies was in the area of ticketing. Ticketmaster was ordered to aid two its biggest competitors, AEG and Comcast, by divesting itself of a ticketing subsidiary and sharing software. But when pressed on why Ticketmaster wasn't required to share its software with all of its competitors Varney said there are "behavioral provisions" in place that will require Live Nation Entertainment "to behave fairly with competing companies." She urged companies to "let us know" if the consent decree isn't being followed.

"Time will tell," she said, if the merger was a good idea. "We need to allow the market to innovate."

Meanwhile, on the same day Varley was answering industry questions, the University of Calgary became the latest independent North American venue to move awayfrom Ticketmaster, after Ticketmaster’s contract expired.

"Renegotiations with Ticketmaster weren't going in a way that we saw favourable from a financial perspective," said Joey Brocke, vice-president of operations and finance.