Ticketmaster apologizes to Taylor Swift and her fans for box office debacle

Ticketmaster apologizes to Taylor Swift and her fans for box office debacle


New York
CNN Business

Ticketmaster apologized to Taylor Swift and her fans late Friday night after a ticketing debacle this week made it difficult for consumers to buy tickets for the pop star’s new tour.

“We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans, especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” the ticketing site said in the blog post.

The company added that it strives to make buying tickets “as easy as possible”, but that “this hasn’t been the case for many people trying to buy tickets” for the tour. Swift, which kicks off March 17 and will feature 52 multi-stadium concerts across the United States over five months.

The company said it was working to “strengthen our technology for the new bar that was established on demand” for its tour. “Once we get through this, if there are any next steps, updates will be shared accordingly,” he wrote.

The mea culpa comes after Swift spoke earlier on Friday about how the situation was “excruciating” for her to watch as it unfolded in chaos.

“I’m not going to apologize to anyone because we’ve asked them many times if they can handle this kind of request and we’ve been assured they can,” the singer wrote in an Instagram post on Friday afterward. -midday. “It’s really amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they’ve suffered multiple bear attacks to get them.”

Swift added that she would try to “understand how this situation can be improved in the future”.

Sales for the singer’s new Eras tour began on Tuesday, but overwhelming demand rumbled through the ticketing site, infuriating countless fans who couldn’t buy tickets. Customers complained on social media about Ticketmaster not loading, saying the platform wouldn’t let them access tickets even if they had a pre-sale code for verified fans.

On Thursday, Ticketmaster announced that the sale to the general public, which was due to begin on Friday, had been canceled due to “extraordinarily high demands on the ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet this demand”.

“To those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to give us more opportunities to come together and sing these songs,” Swift said.

The Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, to determine whether the company has a monopoly on the concert market, including the purchase of tickets, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. . The New York Times first reported the investigation on Friday.

The Justice Department has reached out to concert venues and other ticket market players over the past several months, asking questions about Live Nation’s practices and industry dynamics, the Times added.

Live Nation responded in a statement posted to its website on Saturday, saying it “takes its responsibilities under antitrust laws seriously” and “does not engage in behavior that could warrant antitrust litigation, let alone orders that would require it to change fundamental business practices. .”

“The Department of Justice itself recognized the competitive nature of the concert promotion business at the time of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger,” the company said in a statement. “That dynamic hasn’t changed.”

Live Nation added that the fact that Ticketmaster “continues to be the leader in such an environment is a testament to the platform and those who operate it, not anti-competitive business practices.”

“We innovate and invest in our technology more than any other ticketing company, and we will continue to do so,” the company wrote, noting that Ticketmaster is the “most transparent and user-friendly ticketing system in the United States.” .

– CNN’s Evan Perez and Tierney Sneed contributed to this report

– Fixed: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated how many stadiums Taylor Swift will play on her Eras Tour.

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