Taylor Swift Ticket Debacle Gets Heated Congressional Hearing

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held a hearing looking into entertainment giant Live Nation's role in the botched pre-sales process for Taylor Swift's Eras tour. A combination of website outages, high fees, and long wait times caused a backlash among customers who were already frustrated with the company's market dominance. 

"To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition. You can't have too much consolidation — something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know 'all too well," said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

While T-Swizzle herself was not in attendance, a cross-section of musical artists, small venue owners, rival ticket companies, and legal experts offered their perspective. Joe Berchtold, president and CFO of Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment, also used the occasion to once again apologize for the issues. 

"As we said after the on-sale, and I reiterate today: We apologize to the fans. We apologize to Ms. Swift. We need to do better and we will do better," he said. 

However, Berchtold maintained that Live Nation's dominant position in the market was not responsible for the mishaps surrounding Swift's Eras tour. Instead he pointed the finger at a bot attack that caused massive inflow of traffic to the Ticketmaster website. 

“While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause our sales,” Berchtold said in a prepared statement. He added that companies such as Ticketmaster are currently in an "arms race" with bots, scalpers, and cyber criminals trying to buy tickets for resale. 

Jerry Mickelson, CEO and president at Jam Productions, a venue-owner in Chicago, rejected this explanation. "You can't blame bots for what happened to Taylor Swift. There's more to that story that you're not hearing," he said. 

Jack Groetzinger, CEO and founder of rival ticket company SeatGeek, blamed the fact that Live Nation essentially has a monopoly on ticket sales for live events.  

"Live Nation controls the most popular entertainers in the world, routes most of the large tours, operates the ticketing systems, and even owns many of the venues," he said. "This power over the entire live entertainment industry allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over the primary ticketing market."

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle tended to agree with this assessment, and several floated the idea of the Department of Justice pursuing an antitrust lawsuit. 

“I want to congratulate and thank you for an absolutely stunning achievement: You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal to Berchtold. 

Updated: Added missing citation for the quote in the second paragraph.

More In Business

Smart Balls! Cryogenic Recovery! Tech is Changing Soccer at Euro 2024

The world’s most popular sport continues to be impacted by rapidly-developing technologies on display at the European championship.

Months Before the Election, the Candidates Are Impacting the Economy

Americans won’t go to the polls until November, but election years tend to benefit stocks – and so far, this year is no exception.

BBTW: Nvidia’s Nvulnerability, Rivian Avoids the Void, and Piracy Is Back!

Our weekly roundup of the biggest stories about the biggest companies in the world's biggest economies.

Mother Jones Publisher Sues OpenAI and Microsoft For “Exploitation”

Another news organization is suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement.

US Economic Growth for Q1 Revised Up to 1.4%

The American economy expanded at a 1.4% annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, in a slight upgrade.

Which Retailers Are Out & Proud... And Which Are Not

Find out which brands and retailers have embraced Pride in 2024 and which are quietly taking steps back. Watch!

Good News? Your Bank Is Prepared for Economic Disaster

While consumers might be worried about their finances, the country's biggest banks are prepared to avoid collapse, according to the Fed's stress test.

Watchdog Slams IRS Identity Theft Case Delays as “Unconscionable”

An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.

A.I. Investments Carry Amazon Over $2 Trillion Valuation Threshold

Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.

The Costs of Extreme Heat Go Far Beyond Higher AC Bills

Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.

Load More