Movies

Ticketmaster faces scrutiny after Taylor Swift ticket chaos

November 17, 2022

Ticketmaster has come under increasing scrutiny, including from lawmakers and state authorities, over its sales practices following outcry from Taylor Swift fans over website outages and long waits to buy tickets for the singer’s upcoming “Eras” tour.

In a letter to Michael Rapino, president and CEO of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., expressed “serious concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its detrimental impact on consumers. »

“Ticketmaster’s power in the core ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically drive companies to innovate and improve their services,” said Klobuchar, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on antitrust issues. “It can lead to the kinds of dramatic service outages we’ve seen this week, where consumers are the ones paying the price.”

In the letter, lawmakers asked Rapino to answer a series of questions, including how much the company has spent upgrading technology to handle increases in demand and what percentage of high-profile tour tickets are reserved for presales. Ticketmaster and Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

The Tennessee attorney general separately said he was launching an investigation into Ticketmaster after his office was inundated with complaints about the ticketing company’s website crashing Tuesday as Swift fans, known as ” Swifties”, were rushing to buy tickets for the “Eras” tour.

“Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is concerned about consumer complaints related to @Ticketmaster. He and his consumer protection team will use every tool available to ensure that no consumer protection law is violated. was raped,” Skrmetti’s office said in a statement. Tweeter Wednesday.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Skrmetti said he was launching an anti-trust investigation into Ticketmaster after the pre-sale debacle caused widespread frustration, NBC affiliate WSMV, based in London, reported. Nashville.

Skrmetti said no direct allegations of misconduct were made against Ticketmaster, but he said it was his job to investigate consumer complaints.

“If it’s a consumer protection violation and we can find exactly where the problems are, we can get a court order that improves business performance. This ensures that the issues that occurred yesterday never happen again,” Skrmetti said, according to WSMV. “If it’s not a consumer protection (violation), but it’s an anti-trust law that’s being violated, there’s a wide range of options available.”

Skrmetti said its investigation will include determining what Ticketmaster promised customers and whether the company delivered on its promise.

The attorney general also said he was concerned that Ticketmaster was profiting twice from ticket sales, with the website also making it easier to resell tickets.

“There’s an incentive there for the company to profit twice from the sale of those tickets,” he said, according to WSMV. “I’m not saying it happened, but we’re going to make sure it doesn’t.” Skrmetti’s office did not respond to a Thursday morning request from NBC News for further comment.

In a statement Posted on Twitter on Tuesday, Ticketmaster said the presale ticket crash happened after its website saw “historically unprecedented demand with millions of people showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix presale.”

Swift’s 2023 US tour, which kicks off in March in Arizona and ends in August in Los Angeles, has 52 concert dates, with Swift recently adding 17 dates to the original tour announcement.

Chantal Da Silva is breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

Rob Wile and Morgan Sung contributed.