Ticketmaster fallout continues: Congress announces hearing after Taylor Swift fiasco
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights will hold “to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry”
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Ticketmaster is facing the music after the epic fiasco surrounding Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Shortly after the cancelation of the public sale for the tour, it was revealed there was already a Justice Department investigation into the service. Now, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights has announced it will hold a hearing “to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry.”
“Last week, the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets. The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve,” say committee chairwoman, Senator Amy Klobuchar. “That’s why we will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike. When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.”
Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation has defended itself against accusations of a monopoly as well as criticism of its handling of Swift’s tour. The company blamed issues on “the staggering number of bot attacks” as well as fans without invite codes trying to participate in the presale.
Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media (Live Nation’s largest shareholder), defended the service by noting that “AEG, our competitor, who is the promoter for Taylor Swift, chose to use us because, in reality, we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world.” He added, “Even our competitors want to come on our platform.”
However, AEG refuted Maffei’s take on the situation in a statement to CNBC: “Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the ‘Eras’ tour required us to ticket through their system. We didn’t have a choice.” Definitely not helping Ticketmaster beat the monopoly allegations!
11 Comments
“Even our competitors want to come on our platform.”
But we won’t let them, only resellers that we own or get kickbacks from can use our platform!I really hope something comes of this but there aren’t many Congresscritters who are fans of trust busting these days so I’m not holding my breath.
When you buy a ticket these days they add all these service charges and convenience fees, and then they actually want to charge you extra if you want actual tickets instead of just showing a barcode on your phone. Businesses like Ticketmaster have never added any value to the concert and live venue market in line with the crazy high fees they charge.
Pretty sure this will go nowhere.Ticketmaster has a monopoly because of the large number of connections they have with venues across the globe. Taylor’s team is entirely capable of reaching out to all of those venues individually and trying to strike a deal, but it’s easier to use a promoting service like Ticketmaster because they already have the contracts drafted and nearly ready to be signed.There is simply too much history to rebuild a competitor.Also this was definitely because of bots over-running the site. It’s Taylor Swift, scalpers will make a bigger profit that they would for the SuperBowl. In the end, Taylor and her fans are the problem here.
Your first sentence is probably correct because it’s the US, and then everything else is wrong.Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with venues and in many cases actually owns the venues, so no, there’s not a lot of end-runs to be made around them.Nope. The bots are definitely a problem, but as has been repeatedly pointed out, they could easily have been defeated if Ticketmaster had actually wanted to. But Ticketmaster takes an even bigger cut from the reselling of the tickets the bots buy up, so they’re not looking to eliminate them.In the end, Taylor and her fans are the problem here.I’m no fan of hers by any stretch of the imagination, but I have no idea how you got here. You yourself just stated it was because of the bots, and even they were only part of the problem.
It takes a little bit of reading comprehension to understand, so I get that you don’t understand. As far as I can tell, Ticketmaster does not own the venues beyond House of Blues. These are Stadium shows we are talking about here, and I don’t believe they own any of the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc. Stadiums Taylor will be playing in. So if you can provide a link that would be great.Taylor and her fans are the problem because they are the one’s who pay for tickets on the scalping market. If there was no demand, scalpers wouldn’t use bots, because there would be no demand to create them.Let me know if you need a basic economics refresher.
Always amusing when an idiot both double-downs on their idiocy and tries to be condescending in the process. Bravo.
Thank you for your input to the conversation. Have a great day bud.
You’re welcome. Anytime!You too, kid.
Hmm, it sounds like the market has already punished Ticketmaster for this and that Congressional intervention will only make things worse, just like every other time the state has gotten involved.
“the market has already punished Ticketmaster for this”What punishment? Ticketmaster sold all of their supply without increasing their infrastructure costs. They have made the maximum amount of money possible.
The market has already punished Ticketmaster….how? Buy buying all the tickets they offered and paying all those fees? Sure, the fans were upset, but with not much recourse against a MONOPOLY like Ticketmaster except to complain to congress about unfair business practices, it seems pretty easy to see how we got here.Why oh why didn’t we heed Eddie Vedder’s warnings all those years ago and join him in his quest???