‘Swifties’ Are Protesting Outside of the Senate’s Ticketmaster Hearing
Do you think Ticketmaster is to blame for the fiasco of Taylor Swift's ticket presale?
Updated January 23, 2023
- The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding its hearing today to explore whether the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company, has stifled competition in the ticketing industry.
- As Senators are grilling industry executives, Taylor Swift fans are protesting outside the U.S. Capitol to share their outrage against Live Nation and the presale debacle of Swift's Eras Tour. The Swifties' protest was organized mainly by Jennifer Kinder, a Dallas-based attorney representing fans in their lawsuit.
- Swifties are demanding that Congress holds Live Nation responsible and that legal action and legislative change follow the hearings. Kinder, who flew in to participate in the protest, said:
"That's what we're hoping, is that Sen. [Amy] Klobuchar, Sen. [Dick] Durbin really begin to ask very tough questions of Ticketmaster and how consumers are treated and how artists are treated. Now, we're only had four days' notice to organize a protest, but we're hoping that people come and collectively with their voice, Ticketmaster sees us, knows that we're here and that we're not going away."
Updated December 6, 2022
- Taylor Swift fans, known as Swifties, are suing Ticketmaster for their chaotic handling of Swift's Eras Tour presale. Fans are accusing the company of fraud, price fixing, and antitrust violations.
- The lawsuit alleges that Ticketmaster misrepresented the details of the presale process, intentionally allowing scalpers and bots to grab tickets to resell. It also claims that Ticketmaster forces artists to sell tickets through its platform because of the restrictive agreements it has with stadiums.
- The 26 plaintiffs in the initial lawsuit are asking Ticketmaster to pay a $2,500 fine for every civil violation — potentially adding to millions of dollars given the 3.5 billion system requests for Swift's presale. Ticketmaster would be expected to pay the plaintiffs triple the amount of their damages.
- Attorney Jennifer Kinder is inviting Swifties to get involved by contacting her law firm or filling out this form. As this is not a class-action lawsuit, any potential damages will be based on each plaintiff's own experience during the presale.
What’s the story?
- The U.S. Senate antitrust panel is holding a hearing on the lack of competition in the ticketing industry after Ticketmaster failed to handle the demand for Taylor Swift Era’s tour sales.
- Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) announced the investigation on Tuesday after reports of significant delays and poor service, which hindered fans' ability to purchase concert tickets.
- Ticketmaster denied any anti-competitive practices and said it remained under a consent decree with the Department of Justice (DOJ) after its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, merged the two companies.
- The Senate’s involvement follows the DOJ’s antitrust investigation of Live Nation Entertainment, looking into whether the company maintains a monopoly over the industry. In response to this, Ticketmaster said:
“Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system.”
What happened with Swift’s ticket sales?
- In an attempt to keep out ticket scalpers, Ticketmaster created a ticket presale to ensure that true fans could get tickets. Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for Taylor Swift’s presale, and only 1.5 million received codes to join the presale.
- On Tuesday, the day of the sale, Ticketmaster received 3.5 billion total system requests, over four times their previous peak. This led to long wait lines, site failures, and millions of disappointed fans. More than 2 million tickets were sold on Tuesday — the most sold for an artist in a single day.
- After the Tuesday presale, Ticketmaster canceled its general sale to the public, noting:
“... [an] extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
- Scalpers quickly took to resale sites, listing some tickets for up to $100,000.
What are they saying?
- Critics say Ticketmaster unfairly dominates the ticketing industry, as the company overcharges customers with high fees and profits from its secondary market websites.
- When announcing the hearing, Sen. Klobuchar said:
“The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations…shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve. That’s why we will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment industry…harms customers and artists alike. When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted:
Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 15, 2022
Break them up.
- Swift and her team made a statement the Friday after the presale, stating they had asked Ticketmaster multiple times if they could handle the anticipated demand for tickets. The company continuously assured them that it could. Swift told her fans she was "pissed off," adding:
“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these [fan] relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse…I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward.”
- Ticketmaster has shifted the blame around since the presale chaos, pointing in their statement toward the popularity of Swift’s music. The statement said:
“The Eras on sale made one thing clear: Taylor Swift is an unstoppable force and continues to set records. We strive to make ticket buying as easy as possible for fans, but that hasn’t been the case for many…We’re working to shore up our tech for the new bar that has been set by demand for the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour.”
Do you think Ticketmaster is to blame for the fiasco of Taylor Swift's ticket presale?
-Jamie Epstein
(Photo credit: Flickr/Ali L.)
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Monopolies by their nature do not have meaningful competition, can set service fees as they choose and provide less than adequate service.
Break TicketMaster up, encourage actual capitalistic practices and let the free market economy regulate service fees and adequacy of provided services by forcing good old fashioned capitalistic competition.
Consolidation of companies and monopolies where there is a dominant marketing position in any industry removes competition needed to force improvement and innovation as we see with Ticketmaster but also is occurring in other industries.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/department-of-justice-investigating-live-nation-1234633271/
Monopolies are horrible for the people.
There are a lot more important topics than this to be concerned with.
Of course!
Their greed and monopoly power went to their heads and they stopped even considering their customers. This is happening to various degrees throughout our economy. Working people are paying through the nose and getting only scraps.
I saw a woman crying hysterically because she didn't get a ticket. Honestly, some people don't have food!!!
The whole point of unfettered, free market capitalism is to achieve monopoly. Ticketmaster has accomplished that. That is what I have been taught is the ultimate American Dream. If that is the case, Ticketmaster should be celebrated, not demonized, because they have accomplished what (supposedly) every good capitalist intends to do.
A local business did me wrong can I get Congress to hold hearings and the DOJ to investigate?
Tickets to events are pricey enough. Why pay additional fees.?
All venues should sell directly, on site and on line.
ticketmaster, and live nation are crooks.
You got to understand they're a monopoly
seems to be something to look into so it is not a trust
Yes, Ticketmaster is 3 million percent responsible. Of course, it's because Monopoloies are now allowed due to the fact that Regan undid regulations.
The two biggest ticket-sellers merge and the question is whether it stifled competition? To bring back a phrase from my childhood, "Well, duh."
Thieves. Always have been.
I don't give a crap about Ticketmaster or Taylor Swift....
Well I do care about is the 31 M1 Abrams tanks that are going to Ukraine!
Hooray for Joe Biden!
Why doesn't Kevin McCarthy get off his lazy ass and do something for this country besides trying to tear it down. Oh I forgot he's a traitor to this country as he's proven and his acceptance of the riders tried to overthrow this nation. Let's throw this little weasel McCarthy out.
With huge market share and knowing her popularity they should have been prepared.
It's their almost-monopoly, it's their 1/3-of-the-price surcharge, and despite pious-mouthing, I just don't think they care. As a performing artist myself, their behaviour is heinous in my opinion. But who am I? I can't fill stadia, so I'm below their radar. But if I ever rose up to their radar, they'd be getting an unwilling pound or two of flesh from my career.
I'm 73 years old and really don't give a shit about Taylor Swift music, but if ticketmaster was in charge of selling the tickets to her show, they are to blame for the screw up and should have to make it right finacially. After all, they profited from other shows they manage the tickets for.
Lots of mudslinging and blame placing....little information about what really went wrong.
This again? Stuff happens, deal with it!!
Who in the world would pay a scapper $100,000 for one ticket to see a 90 minute to two hour concert.
Granted she is a good artist she is ever very pretty and even if the tickets included a front row seat right on the stage, a backstage pass to her dressing room and on free night with her at her hotel room I wouldn't pay $1000 dollars for that ticket. My wife would also want to go to the concert so that would be $200,000 for two tickets. Give me a break. Go on Amazon and buy a very large 75 in TV with surrounding sound and a stack of 10 of her DVD's invite your friend over a enjoy the ten concerts.
Monopolies are not created to provide service. They are designed to reap the highest possible profit for their owners at whoever's expense. That is why all American monopolies should be broken up as they always have been in our history.
The whole system of buying tickets for large concerts is broken and awful. There is no free market at work here as it's a monopoly, and then you have to pay inflated rates from resellers if you can't compete with bots to buy from the original monopoly seller.
It's high time Congress looked into this.
I'm not sure that what's going on with Ticketmaster warrants a government investigation. It would seem that there would be a quality control unit within the organization that would handle problems like this. Of course, like our federal government, the propensity for greed, power, and corruption could run deep. There is a lot within our government that needs to be investigated and not by those who will give a free pass to their own party rife with corruption!!
11/28/22