Senator Amy Klobuchar is concerned about a lack of competition among ticket sellers as a result of Ticketmaster's continued dominance in the live event sector
The impact from last week's Ticketmaster debacle continues as Taylor Swift fans hurry to get tickets for the popstar's forthcoming The Eras Tour. The rush immediately brought Ticketmaster's website down. In the aftermath, an outpouring of rage from fans, musicians, and politicians was directed against Ticketmaster for allegedly mishandling the tour's presale. Today, Democratic Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee scheduled a bipartisan hearing to explore Ticketmaster's monopoly on live events.
According to Klobuchar's website, Klobuchar and Lee are the chair and ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, which will investigate Ticketmaster's handling of Swift's presale for the Eras Tour. Klobuchar expressed her worries about Ticketmaster's impact on the live event sector in a letter to Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino. The forthcoming hearing date and any witnesses who will be summoned will be notified at a later date.
"Last week, the ticketing market's competition problem was made painfully clear when Ticketmaster's website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets," Klobuchar stated in a news statement. "As a result, we will hold a hearing to discuss how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms both customers and artists." We all lose when there is no competition to promote better services and fair rates."
Ticketmaster is a behemoth that will not go down without a fight. Swift herself revealed her displeasure following the presale debacle for her forthcoming tour, which is set to begin this spring. "There are a variety of reasons why people had such a difficult time trying to get tickets, and I'm trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward," Swift said in an Instagram story message on Friday. "I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we repeatedly asked [Ticketmaster] if they could handle this kind of demand and were assured they could."
Last Tuesday, verified fans who got an unique access code were able to participate in a presale for Swift's The Era's Tour tickets. The presale began at 10 a.m. sharp. ET for East Coast locations, and Ticketmaster's website began to fail 20 minutes later. Ticketmaster's website was down for the remainder of the day, and the company tried to reschedule the remaining presales at later hours to alleviate the traffic congestion.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 15, 2022
However, on Thursday, November 17, the company confirmed on Twitter that the public general sale for tickets, which had been rescheduled to begin on Friday, November 18, had been cancelled due to "extraordinarily high demand." Ticketmaster later claimed.
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