No Taylor? no peace!
A crowd of Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster over botched ticket sales for their November 15 Eras tour.
The fan collective is suing the company for “fraud, price fixing and antitrust violations” and accusing it of “willful deception” that allowed scalpers to buy most of the tickets.
Ticketmaster controls the primary ticket sales market and is also involved in the secondary market. The lawsuit alleges they were “eager” to let scalpers into the presale event in order to collect additional fees for resold tickets.
The lawsuit (read it here) alleges that even if there was no willful collusion, the company was unprepared for the ticketing attack, an allegation Swift made herself.
The lawsuit names LA County, home of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation. The lawsuit requires the court to fine the company a civil fine of $2,500 per violation, which would add up to a significant amount for a stadium show.
Ticketmaster apologized to Swift and fans after the presale, blaming an overwhelming surge and bot attacks for creating massive demand. This activity locked out many fans who had registered and received special codes allowing the purchase of tickets. In addition, public ticket sales were canceled due to limited remaining tickets.
Swift claimed she was “confident” that Ticketmaster could handle the expected high demand for tickets. She lamented, “It really pisses me off that a lot of[fans]feel like they went through multiple bear attacks to get them.”
Ticketmaster claimed that more than 3.5 million people registered for the presale, the largest registration in history.