Be careful out there if you’re planning on seeing Luke Bryan in concert.
Live Nation has settled a lawsuit after a fan suffered a traumatic brain injury from a brawl that broke out at one of the “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” singer’s shows back in 2022.
According to the lawsuit filed back in 2024, which has been reviewed by Whiskey Riff, Gary Stanhope was attending the concert at Xfinity Theater in Hartford, Connecticut when a fight broke out. Stanhope says he was “assaulted and violently beaten into unconsciousness,” and as a result suffered a traumatic brain injury, hematoma to the brain, an injuries to his face that required him to spend “3 to 4 days” on a ventilator and be put into a medically induced coma. He also claims that the injuries caused permanent damage from both PTSD and ongoing headaches from his injuries.
The Connecticut resident accused Live Nation of negligence for failing to provide adequate security for the show, failing to warn guests of “possible dangers of crowd violence,” and failing to provide a safe environment for fans despite knowing that fights regularly break out at the venue.
Live Nation, though, claimed that Stanhope and those around him admitted that there were security guards nearby, and that the man admitted to becoming intoxicated and not remembering anything about the incident. The entertainment giant also claims to have hired “many more” security personnel than required, including 116 security guards and 16 off-duty Hartford Police Department officers, and that the fight was “instantaneous and unforeseeable,” arguing that Stanhope’s injuries were the result of criminal conduct by somebody else and not Live Nation’s negligence.
The judge refused to dismiss Stanhope’s lawsuit, finding that because there was a “rowdy” crowd and a delayed response from EMTs, a jury could find that it was foreseeable that Stanhope would be injured. But before it could be heard by a jury, notice was filed yesterday that the parties had reached a settlement to bring the lawsuit to an end.
The amount of the settlement remains confidential, so we don’t know how much Stanhope is getting, but Live Nation denied any admission of wrongdoing and both parties agreed for the case to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be filed again.
Luke Bryan was not named in the lawsuit, and neither was anyone else involved in the fight who actually caused the injuries to Stanhope. It’s not clear whether criminal charges were brought as a result of the incident.
Of course Live Nation has bigger problems to worry about right now, given that a jury found earlier this year that Live Nation and Ticketmaster were operating as an illegal monopoly following a lengthy trial.
With the jury’s verdict, Judge Arun Subramanian will now decide the consequences for the companies, which could include monetary damages, injunctive relief forcing them to change their business practices, or even ordering a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster (though I would say that’s unlikely).
The jury found that Ticketmaster overcharged customers by $1.72 per ticket, so I wouldn’t be expecting a massive windfall from the settlement, but if it improves the ticket buying experience and brings down prices for both fans and artists, it will still be a massive win.
