After four years and five albums, American pop star Taylor Swift has finally decided to go back on tour with a whooping 52 shows around the United States. The long awaited tour made headlines this November, following the release of Swift’s new album, Midnights, but not for exactly the right reasons. As fans, politicians and ticketing companies grew in frustration, the situation has brought light to issues of the ethics of monopolies in the live events industry, the rights of artists and their role in ticketing, issues with dynamic pricing and just how much power “Swifties” yield.
The chaos started right from the beginning. With such a long hiatus from live performances, an ever growing fanbase, several new albums, and Swift’s meticulous use of her famous “easter eggs,” the tour was hypothesized to be historical in one sense or another. Originally, Ticketmaster was set to sell the tickets in different presale and general sale periods.
Presales for live events are opportunities for fans to get tickets before anyone else in the general public and usually contain an allocated amount of tickets for the event, which is usually about 30%. The first presale was set to take place at 10am on November 15. Fans could sign up for this by registering with Ticketmaster and then being chosen by “random” to participate in presale. Some fans received presale “boosts” in the lottery system for going to previous tours or buying merchandise. If selected, fans received a code the night before to join the presale and buy their tickets. The next presale was the Capital One presale, which could only be accessed by Capital One cardholders by using the first six digits of their card. Finally, the tickets not allocated to presale were supposed to be sold to the general public in “General Sale” the following Friday, November 18.
As fans rushed to social media the eve of November 15, the frustration and anger was already brewing. Many fans were critical of who was receiving the presale and the amount of recipients. Previously, Swift has used a merit system that valued fans who had listened to more music and bought more merchandise, which ensured “real fans” were getting access to tickets first. However, this time, many of these dedicated fans were being denied from presale and being put on the waiting list, while very few people were receiving presale codes. Fans were angry and confused, but presale prevailed.
On the morning of November 15, fans hurried to the Ticketmaster site, only to be met with a crashing website, long virtual lines and big screen saying that “there are 2000+ people ahead of you,” high prices, and almost no tickets to buy. A historical 14 million people and bots had logged on to buy tickets, with 2.4 million tickets being sold. Some fans reported waiting online for 5 hours, just to see no tickets left or extremely overpriced seats. With this high demand, the site crashed many times and left fans stranded. By 1pm, Ticketmaster alerted buyers that sales for tickets for west coast dates and CapitalOne presale would be moved to the next day so they could fix their website.
Hopefully, fans logged back on, but were met with the same situation. With more website crashes and disappointed fans, general public sale for the coming Friday was canceled. Even more upsetting, a large percentage of tickets can be found on resale sites such as StubHub, selling for 10x the original price, some even at $60,000, showing that preference was given to resale sites and bots, not actual fans.
At its surface, the issue looked like a classic case of Ticketmaster not being able to keep up with high demand. However, Swift issued a statement on social media detailing that her team had repeatedly asked the ticketing company if they could handle the intense volume of buyers, which they reassured her they could. She compared the experience for her fans as taking on “several bear attacks”
The issue of Ticketmaster and Swift is not the first. It only brings further light to the issue of monopolies in the ticketing industry, which in this case is Ticketmaster. For context, back in the 1990s, Ticketmaster was already being investigated for antitrust concerns, as they had around 80 percent of the ticketing market, totally separate from the concert promotion company, Live Nation. Live Nation also had a probe, the Department of Justice investigated them in the early 2000s for buying up all these regional concert promoters. Separately, they had a lot of power, but they weren’t an entirely integrated service.
Prior to the merge, many assume there were a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions of how to not actually compete with each other, the solution to be on the same side of the merge. In 2010 Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation, giving Ticketmaster a virtual monopoly over ticket buying consumers, artists and the venues they play. This allowed them to push out any competition they had at any level.
In 2019, Live Nation agreed to settle with the DOJ over antitrust violations and extend terms of its regulatory decree (a set of antitrust agreements that the DOJ made Live Nation promise to abide by in order to allow the merger to happen).
Due to exclusive contracts with artists and venues, buyers usually have to go through Ticketmaster to see almost any artist in concert. Artists face limits as well because many venues have contracts with Ticketmaster which requires the company to be their ticket vendor to play at the venue. Usually, companies can’t go around upsetting its consumers with high prices and website crashes, but due to its dominance in the industry, Ticketmaster is able to prevail.
So, what’s happening now? Many have come out against Ticketmaster, fans and politicians. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the company a “monopoly” and alluded that we must fight this industry dominance. As of late, the Department of Justice is reportedly going to open an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster. Ideally, the DOJ would file a formal complaint and claim the company is violating the Sherman Act. Ticketmaster would defend themselves, and if there’s a good judge, they will rule that the company is a monopoly and is abusing its dominance, which would unwind the merger. However, that is a rare scenario and Ticketmaster will probably end up settling.
Ticketmaster has also given some fans who acquired a “boost” in presale with a second chance at tickets, but there are no projections for how smoothly or fairly that solution is going to play out.
What can the normal consumer do? Not much, in reality. You can send a letter to the DOJ, but getting through is difficult and bureaucratic. Instead, companies such as “Break Up Ticketmaster” aid fans in finding solutions to take down Ticketmaster, or at least unmerge it.
The Federal Trade Commission is also a regulatory agency that deals with antitrust. They have this law, Section Five, that allows them to enforce antitrust laws, and they have public comment openings often throughout the year.
At the state level, you can talk to your state’s attorney general. Recently, the Tennessee AG has looked into opening up an investigation in Ticketmaster with their constituents' complaints.
So, why should we care? How does a Taylor Swift concert with light shows and love songs impact the daily lives of consumers? Well, if Ticketmaster’s monopoly were to be taken down, it would call for more competition and in turn a more flourishing ticketing market which would aid in everyone’s ticket buying experience for any artist, regardless of being a Swiftie.