This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: The Ticketmaster Crisis
When everything that could go wrong, goes wrong.
2023 has been named the year of concerts and mega-tours. Prime examples such as Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have led the way with sold-out shows filling out stadiums all over the United States. After 2 years of post-poned, re-scheduled, or limited occupancy events, these shows have managed to boost the economy, enhance marketing efforts, and give us something to talk about all year.
However, just like with any phenomenon, different key players have contributed to either improving or worsening this experience for fans and artists alike. And if we are talking about tours and key players, then we have to talk about Ticketmaster.
Some Background
Ticketmaster is an American ticket selling company, founded in 1976. Later merged with Live Nation, the biggest concert promotion company in the world in 2010, who became Live Nation Entertainment.
Live Nation Entertainment has control of most of its market, basically monopolizing the ticket selling industry by preventing artists from working with other companies. However, considering that Ticketmaster has no market competition, they have been able to establish a dynamic pricing model that increases as demand for an artist or an event increases. Therefore, the company is able to place a high face value price for a ticket without any regulation or even the possibility of losing customers.
Pre-selling The Eras Tour
When Taylor Swift announced her return to the stadiums with her highly anticipated Eras Tour, the crowds went wild. On November 2022, when the pre-sale for the tour opened, despite Ticketmaster’s anticipation of high presale registrations, their system failed to weed out bots from genuine fans.
This led to a proliferation of resold tickets at inflated prices on secondary markets. Although Ticketmaster claims only a small fraction of tickets were resold, their platform struggled with the overwhelming traffic and bot activities, resulting in an early shutdown of the sale to prevent a crash. Fans lucky enough to reach the purchasing stage were confronted with Ticketmaster’s infamously high fees at checkout, with some tickets for a New Jersey concert reaching a staggering $12,000 USD from the original $449 USD price point. In other words, too many people, too little tickets, ridiculously high fees.
On Crisis Management
Taylor Swift quickly addressed the ticketing fiasco on Instagram, expressing that her team was given assurances by Ticketmaster about handling the high demand, and aspiring to create more chances for her fans in the future. In the meantime, the US Department of Justice opened an investigation against Live Nation for potentially abusing Ticketmaster’s dominant position in the market.
On January of this year, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a 3-hour long hearing against the Live Nation Entertainment CFO, Joe Berchtold on whether or not his company was too dominant in the market and if rules about transparency in ticket sales should be issued.
Now, the problem was not only the high fees, the cancellation of the pre-sale, or even the senate hearing. One of the biggest problems this company faced was its poor crisis management during this time.
Ticketmaster’s Response
As a marketer, I have learned that the best approach in the middle of a crisis is to follow these simple steps:
- Frequently communicate with all the parties involved.
- Be transparent and empathetic.
- Set expectations for the future and outline actionable steps for the future.
Clearly, just like in real-life, apologizing is not enough.
Now, when everything went downhill, Ticketmaster failed to respond quickly and address the situation effectively. With no official statement from the company, other than the cancellation of the pre-sale event and later emailing a few lucky waitlisted fans allowing them to have a chance to purchase tickets. It initially tried to deflect blame and justify the situation by pointing out the high demand for Taylor Swift tickets. When the reality is that this could have been easily avoided. If only a retailer that has been around for as long as Ticketmaster would have been better prepared.
On Redeeming Themselves
Whether or not Ticketmaster has successfully redeemed themselves after this crisis, is also questionable. Stakeholders such as fans, artists, and policymakers will continue to hold the company accountable for fully disclosing their service fees. In fact, President Joe Biden hosted a meeting with representatives from Live Nation, SeatGeek, and DICE, and even Airbnb about specifically eliminating hidden junk fees and reducing or capping prices for individuals in need.
After this, Ticketmaster has done a far better job at selling tickets for other high-traffic events such as Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour. Explaining across their social media channels all the steps to be considered when entering the pre-sale for this tour.
Now, do band-aids fix bullet holes? Only the pre-sale for Taylor Swift’s second leg of her tour will tell.
