Swifties Go to War with Ticketmaster
Article by Alexandra Sepe | Illustration by Mallika Sunder
I’m the biggest Taylor Swift fan I know. I’ve memorized the lyrics to all of her songs, I have nearly all of her albums on record; hey, I even bought all of her Anti Hero remixes. My dad does the exact same, but for Bruce Springsteen. Yet, none of us got tickets to their 2023 tours. Why? Ask Ticketmaster.
On Tuesday November 15th, Taylor’s fans “swiftly” rushed to ticketmaster to secure their pre-sale tickets for her 2023 Eras Tour. Pre-sale access was granted to around 1.5 million verified fans (Ticketmaster’s system to “ensure” that real fans get tickets). However, over 14 million people —where “people” unfortunately also included bots—- got on the Ticketmaster website that Tuesday morning. And by the time the general sale rolled around, Ticketmaster announced that there were no tickets left. What was supposed to be an exciting experience turned into dreadful hours of waiting in queues (I waited 8!). Fans were given no information about where they stood in the queue, received constant presale code errors, and were faced with ridiculously high fees. While many fans still somehow managed to get their hands on some tickets, many more did not.
Ticketmaster released a statement saying that they experienced a “historically unprecedented demand” for tickets that would’ve required 900 stadiums to fulfill. Ticketmaster wrongly assumed that only a fraction of verified fans would show up to buy the tickets. Verified fans could purchase up to 6 tickets (if they even managed to get out of the queue), but the bigger underlying problem here is that this was practically an invitation for scalpers. StubHub accounts are selling tickets for upwards of $10,000—preying on Swift's hyper loyal fan base for profit.
Taylor Swift is one of the biggest pop stars of our time and she’s released 6 albums in the past 3 years. It was to be expected that the demand for tickets to her first tour in five years would have been extremely high. I’m not denying the undeniable. Not everyone was going to get tickets, but Ticketmaster could’ve improved the experience. In 2010, Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation, ultimately giving them a monopoly over concert ticket sales. And, if you’re a monopoly, why would you even care about your customers. They have no choice but to buy from you. Taylor Swift, known to be transparent with her fans, released an apology in which she claimed that the company ensured her they could meet the demand. But, alas, that’s just an apology. Despite her worldwide influence and wealth, Taylor can’t really do anything but complain and defend her fans.
Luckily, something good might come out of this debacle. A U.S Senate antitrust panel will hold a hearing where Ticketmasters’ monopoly power will be discussed. Senator Amy Klobuchar will chair the panel, but no other information (dates, witnesses, etc..) about it has been released yet. Additionally, Attorney General of Tennessee Jonathan Skrmetti plans to launch a consumer protection investigation against Ticketmaster on top of the others that are currently ongoing. If any misconduct on the company’s part is found, there is a possibility that the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster will be dismantled. This isn't the first time we’ve seen something like this. In 1982, the U.S government broke down the mega-corporation AT&T into seven smaller companies resulting in affordable prices for its customers.
Hopefully, a similar result can be achieved with Ticketmaster.
Sources consulted
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2022/11/21/23471763/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-monopoly