Taylor Swift fans eagerly awaited their golden ticket on Monday: a verified code that would give them access to Ticketmaster’s presale for the icon’s upcoming Eras Tour. The next day, when those who were selected signed up to buy, they were met with chaos. Long waits and a downed website forced many people to leave, hours later, empty-handed.
Furious, the Swifties mobilized. They tweeted and created TikToks. They began to consider filing class action lawsuits against Ticketmaster and explored their own antitrust initiative. They have become a choir strong enough to reach the ears of lawmakers like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and US senator Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota). On Friday, as the outrage reached fever pitch, an ongoing antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, went public.
Swifties hasn’t uncovered a new problem – people have been complaining about Ticketmaster’s poor service and high fees for years. And the basis of the DOJ’s investigation is likely not the failure of ticket sales, but rather the ongoing issues surrounding Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger with Live Nation, which is a major player in the world tour business. . Swift isn’t the first performer to be entangled in box office drama, but she could be one of the last.
Competitors accused Live Nation Entertainment of forcing venues to use Ticketmaster, stifling competition in the ticket resale market and withholding tickets. With these factors in play, experts say there could be legal standing to break up the giant. “The framework that created [the Swift ticket nightmare] is entirely worthy of antitrust scrutiny,” says Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute.
Although highly publicized, the Swift saga is far from the first time that Live Nation Entertainment has come to the attention of law enforcement. The U.S. government had the opportunity to take action against the company in 2019. The DOJ found that the company leveraged its control over touring activity to push venues to use Ticketmaster, a violation of consent decree of 2010 that guided the merger. But rather than dismantle Live Nation Entertainment, the DOJ extended the consent decree through the end of 2025 and added an amendment making it clearer that Live Nation could not threaten or retaliate against sites that did not sell tickets. through Ticketmaster.
Swift’s tour is not handled by Live Nation, but by competitor AEG. Yet Ticketmaster was selected over AEG’s own ticketing platform, AXS. AEG did not respond to questions about why it uses Ticketmaster for sales. Ticketmaster too canceled the November 18 public ticket sale, citing a lack of inventory.
Experts say Ticketmaster’s status as one of the only games in town has allowed the company to ride without making improvements to its systems. Its Verified Fan presale program was intended to weed out bots and ticket resellers, but this week’s chaos shows it hasn’t been effective for either. Neither Ticketmaster nor Live Nation responded to requests for comment.