đMarked Safe from The Ticketmaster Games
From Taylor Swift, to BeyoncĂŠ, to Drake â the ticketing giant poses an (unnecessary) hurdle for many concert goers
On the eve of November 15, 2022, a ââ¨Swiftieâ¨â group chat in anticipation of Taylor Swiftâs âThe Eras Tourâ formed in my inbox for two reasons: the nostalgic excitement over music that spanned our adolescent years, and a crisis center to what we expected to be a challenging queue for good seats. Itâs no surprise the latter is mentioned as Ticketmaster has had decades-long crises, from a court battle with 90âs rock band Pearl Jam to a 2010 merger with Live Nation Entertainment. This was literally the companyâs ticket to monopolizing the live entertainment industry, building them up for scenarios of consumer exploitation.
Time check 9AM, November 15: my friend was #1251 in queue and I was on status (madness) tracking duty on Twitter seeing many tweets on technical issues, resellers on Stubhub already pricing at 10x the original value, and failed presale codes. With stadium tours naturally carrying more audience capacity and the provision of numbered presale codes, most consumers would expect that Ticketmaster has already mastered the exorbitant demand for tickets, but after a few hours they published a tweet highlighting a number of issues. With over 31,000 impressions, that tweet triggered many angry responses â some outright, others coated with humor albeit rather sarcastic.
That was just the presale â on November 17, Ticketmaster tweeted the cancellation of the public general sale with another emphasis on unprecedented demand. Two days later, a blog was published on their website accounting for all issues encountered and a record-breaking sale for the tour. I credit the time sensitivity and structured detail of their social media responses, however, the level of response still does not seem commensurate to Ticketmasterâs longevity in the business and their claim to having the worldâs leading ticketing technology (spot the service fees they add of top of ticket prices).
Although our group was âmarked safeâ from a long ticket queue, this does not diminish the reputation crisis of Ticketmaster. The echoes from The Eras Tour fiasco are reaching legislators and regulators, pushing them towards an antitrust litigation. Authority figures in the senate and congress have expressed their takes on this:
â[There is] serious concern about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its harmful impact on consumersâ, according to Amy Klobuchar, the chair of the Senateâs Antitrust committee
Iâll admit that I still had a creeping trauma when I logged into Ticketmaster again this month to try and purchase tickets to Drakeâs âItâs All A Blur Tourâ. Again, I was thankfully marked safe and attained tickets for a good price, but Iâm not going to let this stop me from holding monopolies accountable for their promises to improve services and regain the trust of concert goers nationwide. Dear Ticketmaster, I know Iâm not alone:
