On November 15th, millions of people with presale codes logged on to Ticketmaster to get tickets for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour — or at least they tried to. The website, run by the massive entertainment company Live Nation Entertainment, struggled under the load, with many users getting errors and being told their information was incorrect.
Things only got worse from there. Two days later, Ticketmaster announced it was canceling the planned public ticket sale, as it didn’t have enough tickets left to meet what it called “historically unprecedented demand.” It also posted a write-up about what had happened, saying that around “15 percent of interactions” with the site ended with an error and that around 3.5 million people had registered with the “Verified Fan” program that’s intended to keep bots at bay.
Since then, Ticketmaster has mysteriously pulled that post, and Taylor Swift has responded to the controversy by saying that she and her team were repeatedly assured the company’s systems would be able to handle the traffic (which the now-deleted post claimed was twice as much as the top five tours of 2022 and Super Bowl combined). The government has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation after several lawmakers raised concerns about it being a monopoly and whether there was enough competition in the ticket-selling space.
On January 24th, Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold and others are sitting in front of Congress for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment.”
Ticketmaster has long been accused of being anticompetitive — Pearl Jam filed a complaint about it to the DOJ in 1994. So it remains to be seen whether this incident will be the latest in a series of unsuccessful attempts to loosen the company’s iron grip on the industry or if it’ll be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Either way, you can come back here for the latest in the Ticketmaster / Taylor Swift drama.
Beyoncé fans may be the next to release their anger at Ticketmaster
Beyoncé just announced her Renaissance World Tour, but tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster, which crashed under the demand for November’s Taylor Swift presale.
Senators and Swifties take on Ticketmaster in Washington
A top executive from Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, was grilled by senators Tuesday following its disastrous ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour last year.
- RThe Senate Judiciary hearing over Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift debacle is starting now.
Ticketmaster’s botched attempt to sell tickets to Taylor Swift’s The Eras tour — and inadvertent antitrust radicalization event — is now being discussed on Capitol Hill.
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment” will have Joe Berchtold, the CFO and president of Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation, and others testifying.
Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster over presale disaster
A group of fans accuse Ticketmaster of engaging in ‘anticompetitive conduct’ after the presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour crashed its site and left fans with long wait times.
- MThe Ticketmaster Taylor Swift fiasco sparked a congressional hearing.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have announced they’re holding a hearing to “examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry” after Ticketmaster’s site crumbled when millions of people tried to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour.
We don’t know when the hearing will be, or who’s testifying, so it’s unclear if Taylor herself will be taking the stand.
Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Lee Announce Hearing on Lack of Competition in Ticketing Markets[U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar]
The DOJ has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster’s owner
Ticketmaster merger’s with Live Nation is getting a look from the Department of Justice, according to The New York Times. Ticketmaster bungled Taylor Swift’s ticket presale this week.
Ticketmaster yanked its explanation for the Taylor Swift ticket debacle
The company had posted about what went wrong in two separate places on its website, but now the posts are gone.
Taylor Swift is just as mad at Ticketmaster as you are
‘It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.’
- AToday on the Vergecast we talked Taylor Swift, Twitter, and the disaster of Meta’s latest headset.
Okay, those weren’t the only topics!
But Adi did join us to talk about her Meta Quest Pro review and just how bad this product and some of the software surrounding it is. Then Nilay relayed his adventures in buying Taylor Swift tickets, Twitter news broke live on the podcast, and we all agreed knobs are good.
Ticketmaster cancels its public sale of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets
Ticketmaster says there was ‘extraordinarily high demands’ on its systems and that it doesn’t have enough tickets left to sell.
Taylor Swift crashed Ticketmaster following ‘historically unprecedented demand’ for tickets
‘Millions’ have showed up to try and buy Taylor Swift tickets, but that’s led to some major issues and frustrated fans.
