Artists have publicly criticized Ticketmaster’s near-monopoly position in recent years, citing excessive service fees and the cost of tickets on the company’s resale platform.
Taylor Swift
Ticketmaster collapses
The Ticketmaster platform crashed for several hours on November 15 during pre-sales for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour in the US. The fiasco caused by the artist’s record demand forced the cancellation of the general sale.
Taylor Swift during her visit to Texas as part of her “The Eras Tour” in March. Photo AFP
“There are so many people who want tickets that there aren’t enough to meet demand,” says Alexis Perron-Brault, music marketing expert at UQAM.
Executives from Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment were pressed in January to answer questions from U.S. senators to get to the root of this disaster. Ticketmaster’s near-monopoly was also highlighted by elected representatives in the US Congress.
The company’s managers particularly defended themselves against the numerous robots that had invaded the platform.
“Looking back, there are some things we could have done better,” Joe Berchtold, president of Live Nation Entertainment, admitted to the Senate.
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Via email, Ticketmaster says it has invested millions of dollars to combat the resale ticket market. The company says it blocked “more than 25 billion” robots on its platform in the first eight months of 2023.
The Cure
Disgust at the costs
As part of their recent North American tour, British rock group The Cure’s singer Robert Smith denounced the ticket giant’s practices.
“I am as disgusted as the rest of you about the Ticketmaster “fees” debacle. To be clear: the artist has no way of limiting them. I asked how they were justified,” the singer wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The singer of the rock group The Cure, Robert Smith, during a show in Copenhagen in October 2022. AFP
Even if the group wanted to cap the cost of a ticket at $20, that didn’t stop Ticketmaster from charging service fees that could double the bill in certain cases, as Le Journal reported last March.
“It seems absurd and hits harder when the ticket is cheap, but basically it takes time [des] Cost. The problem is that these fees are generally excessive and are even higher for very expensive tickets,” explains Mr. Perron-Brault.
Neil Young
The good old days are over
Toronto singer Neil Young also blamed Ticketmaster for this in a text published on his website in the spring. “It is finished. The good old days are over, he wrote. I get letters blaming me for $3,000 tickets to a charity show I’m putting on.
Singer Neil Young during the 2018 Quebec Summer Festival. Archive photo, AFP
This money does not go to me or to the organization. […] Concert tours are no longer fun. They are no longer what they once were. »
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