Taylor Swift fans say they are considering taking legal action against Ticketmaster over issues with presale tickets, accusing the company of “fraud, price fixing and antitrust violations,” reports said Sunday.
After a chaotic rollout of presale tickets that left fans waiting for hours on the ticketing site, Ticketmaster halted had public ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, leaving many frustrated and empty-handed in November.
Some Democrats and Republicans also expressed outrage over the fiasco, questioning whether Ticketmaster handled the Swift ticket rollout properly. It also reignited claims that Ticketmaster wields undue power in the ticketing and live events industries.
News18 takes a look at the allegations of monopoly, the fiasco and Swift’s reaction:
What Happened?
During Swift’s Eras Tour’s “verified fan” presale in November, fans expressed outrage over the process, which included waiting for hours, and being prevented from purchasing tickets at all. The following day, Ticketmaster announced that the planned public sale would be cancelled due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
Swift vented her rage on Instagram, saying it was “excruciating” for her to watch “mistakes happen with no recourse.”
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” she said. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Ticketmaster, which estimates that they had 3.5 billion total system requests, apologized to Swift and her fans on social media.
“Even when a high demand onsale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty handed,” Ticketmaster said in a statement. “For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.”
Does Ticketmaster Have a Monopoly?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth, stated on Twitter that Ticketmaster is a monopoly that should be broken up. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ocasio-Cortez stated that she supports the dissolution of the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger.
Meanwhile, Tennessee’s attorney general announced that his office would investigate Ticketmaster’s handling of the presale. On November 18, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is also investigating Live Nation for abusing its power in the music industry.
Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, makes money from the sale and redistribution of tickets for businesses. The company owns the majority of the country’s artists, venues, and ticket market. It also has dynamic pricing, which causes a rush when highly anticipated events are announced, says a report by The Hindu.
“In some cases, events on our platform may have “market-priced” tickets, so ticket and fee prices may adjust over time based on demand,” Ticketmaster said on their website.
The company has previously faced criticism for its dynamic pricing, as it does not publicise ticket prices ahead of time and prices change based on demand. According to the BBC, Ticketmaster was scrutinised last month for its ‘dynamic pricing’ during the sale of tickets to Harry Styles, Coldplay, and Blackpink concerts in the United Kingdom.
According to Ticketmaster’s website, it makes no money from the face value of a ticket and only covers costs through ticket fees. However, with dynamic pricing, ticket prices frequently rise to match those of resale tickets, which can be much higher. The platform also allows verified users to resell tickets, which can have an impact on pricing.
Ticketmaster says dynamic pricing is necessary for the survival of the live music industry. According to the report, artists and representatives devise pricing strategies that include fixed and market price points. However, in order to keep costs low for fans, some artists have rejected the dynamic pricing structure.
According to critics of dynamic pricing, artists can control touting and reselling of tickets by instituting checks such as identification at the time of entry to the venue.
Ticketmaster, which was founded in 1976, has also faced criticism in recent years for its acquisition of competitors such as Ticketron, TicketWeb, Musictoday, and TicketsNow, which led to it becoming one of the largest ticket selling online platforms.
When Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, officials said it would increase competition and drive down ticket prices, the report explained.
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