At the US Senate grill on Tuesday, the Ticketmaster platform admitted it had a “responsibility” in the cacophony surrounding the sale of tickets to American star Taylor Swift’s tour last November.
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“Looking back, there are some things we could have done better,” acknowledged Joe Berchtold, head of Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company.
However, he was quick to point out shared responsibility for “bot attacks” that significantly slowed the platform’s operations during the mid-November Taylor Swift ticket sale.
Endless waits, bugs and skyrocketing prices… during the early sales of the “Eras” (“Eras”) tour, which begins March 18, a litany of fans complained on social media.
This chaotic situation had reignited criticism of the dominance of the ticketing giant, which merged with entertainment giant Live Nation in 2010.
Without naming her directly, the singer had attacked the platform in an Instagram post, claiming she was “not on it anymore” after seeing how many of her admirers were “living a nightmare”.
When the pop star didn’t make the trip to Congress on Tuesday, senators heard testimony from Clyde Lawrence, a soul singer, who castigated “the utter lack of visibility” artists have given the fees charged by the platform.
Because in addition to ticket sales, Live Nation also has a large number of concert halls.
“If they want to charge us $250 for 10 clean towels, they can, and they did it,” the musician said.
“That’s exactly the definition of a monopoly,” said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. “Live Nation is so powerful that it doesn’t even need to exert pressure to threaten effusively. People just line up,” said the official-elect, head of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
The prices for rock legend Bruce Springsteen’s concerts, some of which were in the thousands of dollars, also caused an uproar in early 2022.
In the middle of the morning, a handful of Taylor Swift fans gathered outside Congress to also denounce the platform’s actions.
Ticketmaster “controls the (music) industry in a way that is completely unfair to consumers,” said Jennifer Kinder, a 56-year-old attorney.
In November 2022, this Texan waited nine hours on Ticketmaster hoping to snag a ticket with her daughter and hear Taylor Swift sing “Midnights,” her favorite album.
“I never managed to get tickets,” this woman, wrapped in a black down jacket, told the US Congress, which filed a complaint against the platform.