How Live Nation and Irving Azoff clinched Dead & Company’s lucrative Las Vegas residency — despite heat from the DOJ

Live Nation and its ex-chairman, the veteran music mogul Irving Azoff, have quietly secured an iron grip over the lucrative Las Vegas residency of Dead & Company — even as they face growing antitrust heat from the feds, The Post has learned.

Live Nation — sued by the Justice Department last month for allegedly profiting from an illegal monopoly over live entertainment — cut an agreement in January with the Grateful Dead offshoot band and billionaire James Dolan’s Las Vegas Sphere to promote a 24-show residency, since extended by another six dates.

In addition to Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit promoting and selling tickets for the blockbuster act — whose lineup includes superstar guitarist John Mayer and legendary Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart — Live Nation has been selling travel packages through Vibee, a hotel-booking and VIP business arm the company launched last year.

The triple packaging of Live Nation, Ticketmaster and Vibee — which the firm also did with the U2 and Phish residencies at the Sphere in recent months — is the kind of blitz that the DOJ has blasted as anticompetitive, with its explosive suit alleging that Live Nation’s various businesses “work together across the ecosystem” to elbow out rivals, according to critics. 

But the aggressiveness with which Azoff elbowed out a smaller vendor in the case of Dead & Company has raised hackles in particular, according to sources.

Over the winter, Azoff — who in addition to being co-manager of Dead & Company is co-founder of the Oak View Group, which advises Dolan’s Sphere arena on sponsorships — made it clear to the band that they needed to hire Vibee to replace 100X Hospitality, sources told The Post.