By Elizabeth Goldman
Editor-in-Chief
On Nov. 15, tickets for Taylor Swift’s 2023 “The Eras Tour” went on presale, and its poor
execution by Ticketmaster disappointed fans nation-wide. Due to Ticketmaster’s near-monopoly
over concert ticket sales, it is exceedingly difficult for well-known artists to successfully promote
their events without utilizing the site’s flawed services. An extreme lack of industry competition
has offered Ticketmaster little incentive to improve its services; therefore, it is imperative that the
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) takes action to check Ticketmaster’s power and break up this
near-monopoly or find alternative ways to promote competition in the industry.
Since Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged in 2010 to form Live Nation Entertainment, they
have maintained control of more than 70% of the market for ticket sales. While not technically a
monopoly, they do not face sufficient competition, and they possess exclusive ticket-selling
contracts at thousands of venues, including most major arenas, according to rollingstone.com.
Prior to the Nov. 15 presale, Swift and Ticketmaster released 1.5 million presale codes.
However, due to Ticketmaster’s poor execution of the release, 14 million users and bots were
able to enter the site to try to buy tickets, causing the site to repeatedly crash and causing some
fans to lose carted seats due to code verification errors. When the site began to work, after
Ticketmaster rescheduled several pre-sales, ticket prices skyrocketed, and the tour rapidly sold
out, resulting in Swift’s general sale, scheduled for Nov. 18, to be canceled.
While the DOJ permitted Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger, it was conditional upon a
settlement designed to prevent venues from being required to use Ticketmaster for sales.
However, in 2019, the DOJ ruled that Live Nation Entertainment had been consistently violating
these terms since 2012, according to americanprogress.org. While Ticketmaster may be acting
within its legal right, the DOJ needs to reevaluate this system as Ticketmaster’s repeated
failures are becoming increasingly unpleasant for fans, artists, and venues alike. Being forced to
deal with flawed and grossly underprepared systems places unfair capitalistic intentions on
well-meaning artists.
Since Ticketmaster utilizes dynamic pricing, a system to automatically set prices based on
demand, when such a high quantity of devices tried to buy tickets, prices skyrocketed past
$20,000 in some cases. Ticketmaster should have been more prepared, knowing the magnitude
of Swift’s popularity. Having a mechanism for turning away users without codes prior to entering
the system could have easily remediated long wait times. However, Ticketmaster has no
incentive to fix its incompetent services due to the lack of competition and the extent of its
market power, an outcome that is to be expected in this type of dominated market, according to
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skirmetti.
According to business.ticketmaster.com, typically only 40% of people with presale codes
purchase presale tickets, so while Ticketmaster knew this tour had unprecedented demand,
they had no way of knowing activity on their site would reach the degree that it did. Moreover,
this tour set a new record of 2.4 million tickets being sold in a single day, leaving no tickets for a
general sale. Despite the record-breaking demand, Ticketmaster should not have been relying
on only 40% of those given access to purchase presale tickets. Further, they should have had a
plan in place to ensure the general sale could happen regardless of presale turn out, unless it
was made clear that it was only conditional upon tickets being left over. In any situation, this is
an ineffective method, but due to Ticketmaster’s lack of competition, there is no reason for the
company to fix it or acknowledge the underlying issue. Surface level damage control to feign
dedication is the best the company is willing to do.
Ticketmaster’s excessive market power provides no incentive to improve its services, as clearly
demonstrated by the failures associated with Swift’s “The Eras Tour” ticket fiasco. With its
near-monopoly, it is nearly impossible for large artists to successfully tour without using
Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster’s exorbitant and unbridled market power is problematic, and its
power needs to be checked to avoid future issues and protect artists from being forced to utilize
a single company’s services.
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