US senators held a hearing to question Ticketmaster executives in Washington on Tuesday to see if the company’s dominance in the events industry led to the fiasco in ticket sales for the upcoming tour. Taylor Swift.
The tour fiasco eras
To understand the origin of this saga, you have to go back to last November: after the release of its 10e album, MidnightsTaylor Swift announces her return to the stage with her tour eras. Ticket sales are set for November 18, with a pre-sale on November 15. On November 17, a dramatic turn of events: Ticketmaster announces the cancellation of the official sale to the general public, justified by “an insufficient inventory of remaining tickets”. Disgruntled fans are complaining about not being able to get their hands on tickets after endless hours of waiting, bugs and crashes, as Ticketmaster says it was stormed by a record number of more than 3, 5 million people who would have registered on the platform and robot attacks. The pop star joins the chorus of critics herself – without naming Ticketmaster. Political reactions were not long in coming either, with several US prosecutors even announcing that they would investigate the company for “alleged deceptive or unfair trade practices”. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar then wrote an open letter to Ticketmaster President and CEO Michael Rapino asking him to answer questions about the company’s business practices.
An expected audience
Joe Berchtold, president and chief financial officer of Live Nation (Ticketmaster’s parent company), acknowledged on Tuesday that the company could have done better. He even went so far as to apologize to Taylor Swift and her fans during the hearing expected since the end of 2022. Despite everything, he wanted to remember that it is not Ticketmaster who decides the price of the tickets or the number of places that will be available for a concert, and even less the service fees, which are set by the performance halls. He also recalled the shared responsibility for “bot attacks” which would have significantly slowed down the activities of the platform during the sale of tickets for the tour. eras. According to him, the events sector would like elected officials to focus more on the problem of ticket resale to prohibit fraudulent practices, such as the resale of tickets that have not yet officially been put on sale.
The scandal too many
PHOTO EDUARDO MUNOZ, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Singer Taylor Swift
By early December, Ticketmaster (and Live Nation) was already facing more than two dozen lawsuits for the presale and cancellation of general public ticket sales for the tour. eras by Taylor Swift. Aggrieved fans believe that Ticketmaster opened the presale to “certified” fans knowing that there would not be enough seats to meet demand, in addition to allowing Taylor Swift’s tour tickets to be resold during the presale , at prices well above the initial price. The Press had even found a ticket to a Swift show in Texas on resale for $38,000, after the official sale was canceled.
However, the recriminations against Ticketmaster do not date from last fall. Prohibitive prices for concerts have caused a lot of ink to flow, especially for resale tickets, but also for seats on ordinary sale. For example, tickets for the band Blink-182’s tour were selling for more than $1,000 in regular sales and up to $13,000 in resale. Ticket prices for Bruce Springsteen concerts, some of which amounted to thousands of dollars, also caused an uproar in early 2022. Ticketmaster has been operating its own resale system since 2018 and anyone can offer tickets purchased on its platform – in complete anonymity. Asked by The Press last year, the company had assured invest millions of dollars in technology to fight against the “bots” that allow the purchase of tickets in large numbers.
A monopoly?
“Live Nation is so powerful that it doesn’t even need to exert any pressure, to make threats. People just fall into line,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, denounced on Tuesday. “That’s exactly the definition of a monopoly,” she said. In 2010, Ticketmaster merged with the American events giant Live Nation, which also owns a large number of concert halls. Live Nation President Joe Berchtold told the Senate on Tuesday that Ticketmaster had lost, not gained, market share since its merger. About 70% of tickets for concerts held in major venues in the United States are now sold through Ticketmaster. With more than 500 million tickets sold worldwide each year – in more than 30 countries – it is the largest company in the sector.
With the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse