When ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour began on Nov. 15, 2022, 14 million fans joined a frantic race for seats. Extraordinarily high demands crashed the ticket site, resulting in a whirlwind of long wait times, cancellation of public ticket sales, exorbitant prices and disappointed fans. The culprit behind this calamity: Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster has become one of the most popular ticket sales and distribution companies in the U.S. since merging with the entertainment company Live Nation in 2010, gaining control of 80% of the ticket sales market and holding exclusive contracts with a plethora of high-capacity event venues. These contracts leave artists with no choice but to turn to Ticketmaster as their vendor. The ubiquitous nature of the company cements its status as a monopoly.
This situation leaves artists with no choice but to comply with the ticketing giant’s demands. As Swift recounts the fiasco, she stated, “we asked [Ticketmaster] multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” However, Ticketmaster quickly crumbled under ballooned demands: fans faced hours of wait times and numerous software glitches.
The overpriced tickets, doused in a sea of outrageous fees, are further evidence of Ticketmaster’s unchecked power. TIME recently reported that “fees that are tacked on to each ticket can be as high as 78% of the ticket price.” Because Ticketmaster monopolizes the industry, it can easily charge steep prices and reap hefty profits from ticket sales—all to the detriment of devout fans.
Additionally, when presales for Swift’s tour went live, bots—automated tools used by scalpers—purchased tickets in bulk and then resold those tickets at extortionate prices, leaving fans with seats priced as high as $45,000 apiece. In a blog post, Ticketmaster admitted that “the staggering number of bot attacks [resulted] in 3.5 billion total system requests.” These bot attacks could have been reduced if fans had other ticketing platforms to turn to. Instead, the Ticketmaster monopoly continues to grow, leaving fans with no choice but to repeatedly face unpleasant circumstances when purchasing tickets.
However, some believe that Ticketmaster is neither a monopoly nor responsible for the Swift debacle. In a statement attempting to explain the situation, the ticketing giant blamed the “high demands” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory” for its blunders. In reality, these issues would have never transpired if other ticketing companies were available to disperse website traffic and shorten wait times. Consequently, the absence of adequate competitors solidifies Ticketmaster as a monopoly.
Ticketmaster’s mismanagement of sales has not gone unnoticed. In a letter to Ticketmaster CEO Michael Rapino, Senator Amy Klobuchar writes, “Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate [resulting] in dramatic service failures.” The attention that the Swift debacle has drawn from lawmakers shows Ticketmaster’s increasing monopoly on the ticketing industry.
Ruminating on the harrowing fiasco, Swift states, “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” Artists are continuously forced to turn to Ticketmaster, for it is a monopoly in the entertainment industry. To prevent repeats of the Swift debacle and protect both fans and artists, the Ticketmaster monopoly must be readily addressed.
Written by Riya Khatri of Sherwood High School
Graphic courtesy of Daniel Chernyak of Richard Montgomery High School