Concert tickets have a reputation for being notoriously expensive and hard to find these days, but the recent Ticketmaster presale for “Taylor Swift: The Era’s Tour” sparked an ongoing debate about the event ticketing industry that became the subject of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 24. 

In Nov. 2022, presale began for tickets to Taylor Swift’s first headlining tour since 2018. Seats to the star’s shows were in high demand with Ticketmaster claiming on their blog, “Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for TaylorSwiftTix Presale powered by Verified Fan, which is the largest registration in history.” 

Fans who received presale codes took to social media to share the hours-long virtual queues they waited in as they attempted to purchase tickets. Many, once at the front of the line, thought it was their chance to snag seats, but were instead met with “504 Error” messages. Others, with tickets in their carts, were prevented from completing their purchases because the website had frozen.

According to Ticketmaster’s blog, “around 40% of invited fans actually show up and buy tickets, and most purchase an average of 3 tickets. Around 1.5 million people were sent codes to join the onsale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 sold by Ticketmaster.” The website was not equipped to sustain the traffic it received.

Swift spoke out about the situation on Instagram, saying, “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them (Ticketmaster), multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” 

Ticketmaster attributed these website malfunctions to,“…a staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests – 4x our previous peak.” After 2 million tickets were sold, Ticketmaster canceled the general onsale, leaving many fans questioning the inner workings of ticket sales management. 

Fans and U.S government officials took notice of the situation, igniting discussion regarding Ticketmaster’s monopoly over the event ticketing industry. Multiple fans filed lawsuits against the company for their mishandling of the presale and the U.S Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing aimed at focusing on the lack of competition in the ticketing market due to the control exhibited by Live Nation Entertainment.

In 2010, Live Nation, an venue operator and event promoter, merged with Ticketmaster to form Live Nation Entertainment. Ticketmaster is now a subsidiary of the Live Nation Entertainment company. According to CNBC, the company now controls approximately 70% of the ticketing and live events venue market. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), notes the government-issued consent decree enabling the merger, “does not appear to have been effective.”

In 2019, the Department of Justice claimed that Live Nation Entertainment repeatedly violated the terms of this consent decree which, “…prohibited the company from retaliating against concert venues for using another ticketing company… for ten years.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, discussed the position many venues are in because of the company: “Even if they are not out there threatening them, they’re afraid to go to someone else because then they are not going to get the acts they want.” 

The hearing saw complaints from music and live event industry leaders in competition with Live Nation Entertainment including Jerry Mikaelson, CEO of Jam Productions, an independent live entertainment producer. Mikaelson addressed Ticketmaster’s claims regarding its website traffic: “For the leading ticket company not to be able to handle bots is, for me, an unbelievable statement. There’s more to that story that you’re not hearing.”

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) echoed these statements when addressing Joe Berchtold, the CFO and President of Live Nation Entertainment: “This is unbelievable. Why is it that you have not developed an algorithm to sort out what is a bot and what is a consumer?” 

Berchtold admitted, “As the leading player, we have an obligation to do better.”

With politicians from across the aisle agreeing that Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power as a monopoly, there is little question that action has to be taken. What exactly that action should be, however, remains undecided. 

Democrats are advocating for Ticketmaster to be broken up, while Republicans have displayed support for a stronger enforcement of laws and regulations already in place, such as those outlined in the renewed consent decree which is set to expire in 2025.