Taylor Swift vs. Ticketmaster: What’s Really Going On?
Image Courtesy: Strike Magazine Tallahassee
On November 15th, 2022, Taylor Swift released the pre-sale tickets for her ‘Era’s’ Tour. Ms. Swift has not toured since 2018, making this tour one for the ages as she will be performing songs from all her eras, including songs from her newest album, Midnights. 15 million fans from all over the world showed up eagerly to purchase a ticket via Ticketmaster; waiting anywhere from four to eight hours, the Swiftie nation was excited to get their tickets.
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Unfortunately, more than 15% of the fans were met with several errors. In a now-taken-down post by Ticketmaster, it was revealed that 3.5 million fans signed up for the Verified Fan program, which selects fans to obtain early access to presale tickets, with 1.5 million of those fans being selected. However, around 15 million fans logged into Ticketmaster on November 15th, causing the site to have technical difficulties. Ticketmaster later responded to this “mishap” by claiming that this was a “historically unprecedented demand,” to which Swift replied that she, “asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could."
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On Thursday, November 17th, 2022, Ticketmaster announced that the general sale planned for Friday, November 18th, 2022, was officially canceled. This left fans who did not secure a ticket during the Verified Fan or Capital One presale ticketless, as they were relying on the general sale. Ticketmaster tweeted, “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow's public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been canceled,".
That Friday, Taylor Swift addressed her fans and the situation. She was excited for the 2.4 million fans who secured tickets but upset that most of her fans “felt like they had to go through several bear attacks to get them." On the same day, Ticketmaster apologized to Taylor and her fans, blaming the situation on high traffic volumes and bot attacks. Ticketmaster explained that 2.4 million tickets were sold between Ticketmaster and SeatGeek. They wrapped up their apology by stating, “Even when a high demand on sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty-handed. For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows”, and by vowing they are working to improve ticket sales for the future.
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This controversy caught the attention of the United States Justice Department, as they began an investigation into Live Nation Entertainment, the mother company of Ticketmaster. The Justice Department is questioning if Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power in the music industry. On November 22nd, 2022, the United States Senate announced they would be holding an antitrust hearing, “to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry." Senator Amy Klobuchar said in a statement, “the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster's website failed hundreds of thousands of fans…When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.”
On December 5th, 2022, 26 fans filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment. Live Nation Entertainment is being accused of violating the state of California’s Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law, among fraud, misinterpretation, and fraudulent inducement. The plaintiffs are seeking $2,500 against Live Nation for every violation of Business and Professions code 17200.
On December 12th, 2022, Ticketmaster sent emails to select fans to give them a chance to purchase Eras tickets. It was reported on December 15th, 2022, that Ticketmaster had 170,000 remaining tickets for the Eras tour, which they planned to sell via Ticketstoday to help them avoid site crashes and long wait times.
On January 18th, 2023, the United States Senate set January 24th, 2023, as the date for the Judiciary hearing against Live Nation Entertainment. Senator Amy Klobuchar said in a statement that the hearing, “will examine how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industries harms customers and artists alike.” On the day of the hearing, several senators quoted Taylor Swift's lyrics during arguments. Senator Richard Blumenthal told the president of Live Nation “Ticketmaster, with their profiteering, predatory practices, should look in the mirror & say: I’m the problem. It’s me.” While no exact solution has been made, the United States Department of Justice has decided to table the idea of reseparating Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
Strike Out,
Writer: Lauren Butrum
Editor: Jayna O
Graphic Designer: Ashley DeCardenas
Tallahassee