First, let me acknowledge that I am completely dating myself with the opening of this blog, but my first concert was New Kids on the Block. It was the summer between 4th and 5th grade. An outdoor concert, the opener was Color Me Bad. My mom dropped me, my sisters, and our friends outside the venue and off we went. I don’t remember a lot about the show, except a sense of cacophony (the lights, the sounds, the crowd), and a cute (older) boy near us with cartoon Batman socks (no joke). As anyone can attest—you never forget your first concert.
As the mother of three girls, I’ve looked forward to experiencing their first concert with them since they were born. I surprised my oldest with her first concert just recently—Harry Styles tickets for her birthday (AMAZING show, BTW).
I had always pictured that one of my girls’ first concerts would be Taylor Swift; as you can imagine, all three are huge Swifties. But Ticketmaster has ruined that for them, maybe.
In mid-November, ticket sales for Taylor’s Eras tour, her first since 2018, launched. Things went awry during the pre-sale, however, when an unprecedented number of fans with pre-sale codes flooded the site and snatched up tickets. As a result, the public ticket sales, which had been set for the following day, were canceled by Ticketmaster, citing "insufficient remaining ticket inventory."
I spoke with numerous people who spent hours—HOURS—on a fool’s errand trying to score these hot tickets. Needless to say, Swifties are extremely angry. Still. And now, some are suing.
So what the heck happened?
Partnering with Ticketmaster
The pop superstar partnered with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Program, allowing her superfan Swifties to preregister earlier and receive a special code for early access ticket sales three days prior to general public sales. The verification process also aimed to identify scalper bots to weed out bulk buying and reselling.
However, there was a glitch—or for the Swifties—a catastrophe. Fans logged in and were hit with error messages or trapped in a queue for hours; others were sent to a waitlist. The sale of west coast tickets was also delayed for three hours to ease site traffic. Angry fans captured screenshots of the glitches and posted them to social media slamming Ticketmaster.
Taylor herself responded two days after the issue: “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand. We were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million 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.”
So what was Ticketmaster’s response? Damage control.
Ticketmaster Plays Clean Up
If you look at the parameters, Ticketmaster isn’t quite to blame for this. The ticket company, owned by Live Nation, posted that there was a "historically unprecedented demand" with millions showing up to buy tickets. The conglomerate later posted an entire mea culpa, unpacking what went wrong. It was known the sale was going to be a big deal after 3.5 million people pre-registered—the largest Verified Fan registration in history. That led Swift's tour team to add more shows, doubling the dates and the tickets. Approximately 1.5 million people were invited to participate in the presale, with the other 2 million on a waiting list. Those numbers were decided because Ticketmaster historically sees 40% of invited fans actually showing up and buying tickets, (most purchase 3 tickets on average).
Ticketmaster added, "Even when a high-demand sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty handed. For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows currently slated)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years."
Even a superhero like Taylor Swift can’t make that magic happen. With a fan base that large, it’s no wonder so many people were irate.
So heightened was their anger, that even U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (the infamous AOC) weighed in. She responded to the hiccup by pointing out the real problem that has very little to do with Swift’s popularity: Ticketmaster’s monopolization of the live music industry. As she put it:
“Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly,” AOC wrote on Twitter. “Its merger with LiveNation (sic) should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”
How did this problematic monopoly come to be?
The History of Ticketmaster and Live Nation
Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged in 2010 after agreeing to certain conditions intended to address antitrust concerns. Not surprisingly, the merger was met with pushback. In fact, just prior to the merger, Bruce Springsteen, angrily wrote in a 2009 letter to his fans: “the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing.”
Interestingly, yet another issue was brought up with Springsteen and Ticketmaster just this fall when his 2023 concert tickets went on sale. Fans were allegedly incensed at the high cost of the tickets. But this time, Springsteen actually controlled this move in an effort to alleviate bot-scalper purchases.
As he put it, “‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?’ It created an opportunity for that to occur. And so at that point, we went for it. I know it was unpopular with some fans. But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”
Yet even prior to The Boss’s beef with Ticketmaster or the Taylor Swift debacle, other industry insiders were airing their grievances. Pearl Jam, in fact, had their own frustrations with them way back in 1995.
Pearl Jam Vs. Ticketmaster
In the early-nineties, Pearl Jam was arguably in their heyday with the launch of their second album, Vitalogy, after the smash success of their debut album, Ten. While promoting the Vitalogy tour, Pearl Jam became increasingly frustrated with Ticketmaster, claiming that after scooping up competitors, they abused marketplace dominance by collecting sky-high service fees and signing exclusive deals with major concert venues. For the next few years, Pearl Jam focused their sales efforts on smaller ticket vendors, but everything fell flat. Then, Washington, D.C. stepped in.
First, a bill requiring that ticket service fees be spelled out on all stubs was defeated, thanks to the efforts of two high-powered lobbyists hired by Ticketmaster. That left the Justice Department’s investigation as the band’s only hope. For more than a year, department staffers interviewed artists’ managers, tour professionals, Ticketmaster competitors, and box-office staffers to determine if the exclusive contracts violated antitrust laws. It all fizzled out, much to the chagrin of Pearl Jam.
Ticketmaster has disgruntled many artists long before T-Swift. Although this latest infraction is sure to increase people’s negative perception of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
But will this monopoly finally be brought down?
Justice Department Vs. Ticketmaster and Live Nation
The New York Times reported recently that the Justice Department’s antitrust division has been conducting an investigation into Live Nation Entertainment, focusing on whether they have abused their power over the multibillion-dollar live-music industry. Interestingly, the investigation was launched even before the Taylor Swift fiasco.
Oh, and one last tidbit: I recently responded to a FB post from a woman selling floor “seats” to the show (quotes because tickets on the floor at Soldier Field are standing only). Four of them, to be exact (which is how many I would need if I took all three of my girls). I responded with my interest immediately and asked how much she wanted for the tickets.
Her answer? $1,800 a piece, which she says was face value. I nearly choked on my lunch. For those who find math hard, like this storyteller, that’s $7,200 in total…hard pass on that one.
Looking ahead, I plan to continue monitoring ticket sales for the T-Swift shows this summer and perhaps write a follow-up blog not only on that, but also on the Justice Department’s investigation. I guarantee these topics won’t die down anytime soon.
Stay tuned.
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