Taylor Swift Is Not at Fault for Ticketmaster’s Failures
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have a monopoly over the live music industry at the expense of artists and fans
December 7, 2022
The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the owner of Ticketmaster after the great war for tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. During the sale, many fans had a treacherous experience when trying to purchase tickets via Ticketmaster for the artist’s next tour. Even after signing up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan list to receive presale codes, getting tickets for one of the 52 stadium shows seemed nearly impossible.
Ticketmaster said that it created the Verified Fan system as a way to get more tickets into the hands of fans at a reasonable price. The Verified Fan program lets fans to sign up for specific events through their Ticketmaster accounts and allows some of them to purchase tickets before the general sale. Fans have to select which shows they would prefer to attend and are alerted as to whether or not they were selected to participate in the presale the night before it begins. Through the phone number fans provide when they initially register, they are sent both a link to purchase tickets and a unique code linked to their account. This link and code become valid once the sale has begun.
Those who sign up can be invited to the sale, waitlisted or denied. If a fan is placed on the waitlist, they could be invited by Ticketmaster at any point during the sale to participate, if availability allows. Those who are denied cannot purchase tickets at all during the presale and must wait for the general sale. When the presale begins, those who received a code are put into a queue depending on when they entered the site.
The site’s crashes kicked fans out of the queue while waiting to purchase tickets, gave them invalid code errors and did not allow them to continue to checkout once they had selected tickets.
With the Verified Fan program, nothing really verifies whether a person is a fan or not. It is really a lottery system unless the artist states otherwise. For the Eras Tour, fans who had previously purchased tickets to Swift’s Lover Fest on the same Ticketmaster account or merchandise from Swift’s store using the same email address linked to their Ticketmaster account were given a boost which was meant to give them a better spot in the queue. It’s unclear whether or not the boosts were really effective.
This then puts pressure on the fans to spend more money in order to secure tickets. They are essentially purchasing a chance to buy a ticket. While it isn’t necessary to buy these items to be selected, it does significantly increase the chances of being chosen.
According to Ticketmaster, 3.5 million people registered for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale, and 1.5 million fans received presale codes. On the actual day, however, Ticketmaster received 3.5 billion total system requests on their website which included fans attempting to purchase tickets, bots attacking the site, and other resellers.
Despite Swift’s team confirming with Ticketmaster multiple times that they would be capable of managing the site’s traffic, the website crashed repeatedly. The site’s crashes kicked fans out of the queue while waiting to purchase tickets, gave them invalid code errors and did not allow them to continue to checkout once they had selected tickets. It also left most fans waiting hours just for the chance to buy tickets. This disastrous first day of presale led to the Capital One Presale, a product of Swift’s ongoing partnership with the bank and which was originally meant to happen a few hours after the Verified Fan Presale, being postponed to the next day.
Along with many other fans, I felt let down and frustrated by my experience from those two days and turned into a mad woman.
The Capital One Presale presented the same issues as the Verified Fan Presale. By the end of the second day, nearly every ticket was sold. On Nov. 17, Ticketmaster announced that the general public sale (for any fan who wanted to buy tickets but was unable to) had been canceled due to “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
As one of the 1.5 million fans who received a code, I was still unable to purchase tickets. After logging onto the site and entering the waiting room at 9:30 a.m. prepared for the 10 a.m. sale to begin, I proceeded to sit staring at my phone for nearly five hours. By the time I was finally allowed to enter the site to purchase tickets for the shows at Gillette Stadium, nothing was left.
The next day, I attempted the Capital One Presale, which could only be accessed by Capital One cardholders, which I am. Despite this, I was still unable to get tickets for any of the three shows. While I didn’t sit in a queue for five hours this time, I was met with error messages and still not allowed to continue to checkout once I had tickets selected.
Along with many other fans, I felt let down and frustrated by my experience from those two days and turned into a mad woman. That frustration wasn’t with Swift but with Ticketmaster. Despite criticisms received, Ticketmaster essentially told fans to just tolerate it.
As the major ticketing platform, Ticketmaster should have been able to handle the traffic on their site and been prepared for bots to attack.
Swift is one of the most popular musicians of our time, so it can be expected that the demand for tickets to one of her shows would be high. As the major ticketing platform, Ticketmaster should have been able to handle the traffic on their site and been prepared for bots to attack. Bots act as a person on the internet but are much faster. They are programmed to go onto ticketing sites and purchase any tickets they can for resellers. By having tickets purchased primarily by bots, many are then resold on third-party sites. On StubHub, tickets for the Eras Tour are currently going for upwards of $20,000.
Ticketmaster prioritizes their resellers over the fans; it’s how they make a lot of their money. The site even has its own platform that allows people to resell tickets through their website or app.
By having their resale platform, Ticketmaster can charge fees for tickets twice: first, when they are originally purchased from Ticketmaster. Fees are then charged again when tickets are purchased for a second time via their reselling platform.
U.S. President Joe Biden has taken an initiative to begin combating these “junk” fees along with others from banks, flights and hotels.
Even before the Swift ticketing fiasco, many concertgoers had noticed the issues with extremely high fees when purchasing tickets. A single ticket that might cost $100 would suddenly cost $120 when they reached the checkout phase.
U.S. President Joe Biden has taken an initiative to begin combating these “junk” fees along with others from banks, flights and hotels. Only 12 days before the Swift Ticketmaster sale, he tweeted “I know hidden junk fees – like processing fees on concert tickets – are a pain. They’re unfair, deceptive, and add up. That’s why, last week, I called on my Administration to crack down on these fees and put that money back in your pocket.”
The problem did not originate with the Swift Ticketmaster sale but has been an ongoing issue for many artists. Ed Sheeran took notice of this problem and canceled over 10,000 tickets that were being resold in 2017 and banned any tickets from being resold above face value. Other artists have required attendants to show the credit card used to purchase tickets, attached names to the tickets, and even waited 24 hours before the show to send out tickets.
Artists have had to take these measures into their own hands to prevent scalpers from getting their hands on tickets because Ticketmaster has failed them, just as it did Swift.
None of these actions have been taken thus far for the Eras Tour, but many fans are calling for Swift to begin again with the presale and cancel tickets being resold. While that may solve the problem for this tour, a more permanent solution is needed.
As many Swift fans may recall, the system set in place for the Reputation Tour was nearly perfect. It prioritized fans and made sure Swift’s die-hards got tickets in their hands. It set a reward system in place, giving fans points when they completed various defined tasks. Those who had the most points were placed higher in line on the day of the sale. These tasks were simple, such as using filters, posting to social media, purchasing the album or merchandise, and watching music videos.
This system worked all too well. Bots and scalpers had a hard time getting their hands on these tickets. This led to Ticketmaster effectively banning the practice, which is why it was not around for Lover Fest or the Eras Tour.
Ticketmaster is now being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating antitrust laws.
Ticketmaster is now being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating antitrust laws. It and its parent company Live Nation have created a monopoly on the music industry. Ticketmaster is the main ticketing agency for live performers and has virtually zero competition that matches their scale. Without any competition, artists are forced to only use Ticketmaster rather than finding a platform that best suits their needs. In addition, Live Nation also owns or has equity in many concert venues, forcing artists to use Ticketmaster when performing at a Live Nation venue.
In the ’90s, Pearl Jam encountered this issue with Ticketmaster. When they didn’t want their fans to be charged fees by Ticketmaster, they postponed their tour to find an alternative to working with them. In turn, they were unable to find venues that would support them as those venues had preexisting deals to only use Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster were able to come to a compromise years later after placing more blockers to stop third-party resellers and ensuring that tickets would end up with fans.
While Pearl Jam was able to settle their issues with Ticketmaster, it is unclear whether Swift and other artists conned by them will be able to resolve their issues.
If there is anything we know about Swift, it’s that she is a mastermind. If you mess with her, she will come right back at you. She created her own management and is rerecording her discography. Who knows, maybe she will create her own ticketing platform. Ticketmaster better be prepared because if there’s one thing that Swift has taught us, it’s that karma is real.
