Taylor Swift’s Rivalry Against the Ticketing Giant

After Ticketmaster sold out Taylor Swift’s newest concert tour on pre-sale alone, the feud amongst the two began, as Ticketmaster is being accused of monopoly behavior, for not the first time.

The new Taylor Swift tour, The Era Tour, was a highly anticipated tour hence Swift not touring since 2018, and her last tour, the Lover Tour, being canceled back in 2020 due to COVID. 

Ticket sales were foreseen to have an extremely high demand which was vocalized by fans via social media after the release of her tenth studio album, ‘Midnights’.

When tickets went on pre-sale, nothing went smoothly for fans in the process of purchasing tickets through Ticketmaster, which was the only available platform for fans to purchase concert tickets. 

On Nov. 15 pre-sale begun for individuals who had a pre-sale code, which could be obtained by being a “verified fan” through Ticketmaster, or having a Capital One credit or debit card. 

Ticketmaster predicted 1.5 million “verified fans” would be attempting to get concert tickets for the Eras Tour, but when pre-sale begun, 14 million people were on the Ticketmaster site, including resale bots, which weren’t supposed to be there, creating a wave of traffic Ticketmaster was not prepared for, Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei told CNBC. 

Ticketmaster stated that two million tickets were sold on pre-sale day, the most ever for an artist in a single day in history according to CNN.

Fans waited numerous hours in the ticket queue anticipating getting tickets, being informed to not refresh the page or they would lose their spot. 

“I got on Ticketmaster an hour before pre-sale started and the website was already crashing. When I eventually got into the queue to buy tickets there were already three-thousand people ahead of me,” said 21-year-old Swift fan Dané Barrios. “I was literally in the queue for five hours, and by the time I got to the screen to buy tickets, everything was sold out. By far it was my worst experience getting tickets for anything in general.”

The site crashed and glitched for a multitude of fans, as some waited for six to ten hours on the Ticketmaster site.

After pre-sale, Ticketmaster took to twitter saying “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” canceling the opportunity for what was supposed to be ticket sales to the public. 

Live Nation is Ticketmaster’s parent company, who promotes tours, owns venues and sells tickets, leaving minimal room for competitors to sell tickets, according to NPR. 

“I’ve been a fan of Taylor Swift since her debut album back in 2006,” 24-year-old Taylor Swift fan Genavieve Zoltak said. “It is frustrating because I did exactly what I was instructed do. I knew I was not guaranteed a ticket with pre-sale but I knew I would at least have public sales as my back up option. Ticketmaster messed up and I think fans have the right to point a finger. You are never guaranteed with concert tickets, but the way Ticketmaster set up pre-sale was not fair or efficient.”

Scalpers and resale sites have been reselling purchased Swift tickets, nosebleed seats going for a skyrocketing price of $1,080 on StubHub at Soldier Field in Chicago.

“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,” Swift posted on Instagram. “It’s truly amazing that two million and four-hundred-thousand 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.”

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is investigating Ticketmaster for their alleged violation of consumers’ rights and antitrust laws, explaining that competition is good, it drives down costs and improves quality.

This is not the first time Ticketmaster and LiveNation have received backlash and been accused of having monopolistic actions; Pearl Jam, the rock band from Seattle, also faced problems with the ticketing giant. 

In 1994, Pearl Jam was dissatisfied with all of the up-charges and fees that Ticketmaster added to consumers ticket prices.

Ticketmaster can upcharge ticket prices by thirty-percent of the ticket cost if the venues’ agree to allow Ticketmaster to distribute the tickets, as an agreement that some of the service fees that Ticketmaster collects will be distributed back to the venues and promoters, according to RollingStone.

Companies have to compete to be the primary ticket provider for venues, and if they are chosen, they have to cut deals, Money.com explained. 

“Our band, which is determined to keep ticket prices low, will always be in conflict with Ticketmaster.” Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard told Rolling Stone.

Pearl Jam received support from other bands during this era, such as Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead and Neil Young. 

Pearl Jam had an open court investigation against Ticketmaster, but after a year of investigation, Pearl Jam lost. 

Although no solution has been provided, the fight of the artists against the ticketing giants is not over.