The Complicated History Between Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift

Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation are facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice, stemming from decades of unlawful business practices.

Ticketmaster is no stranger to Congress, having come under fierce scrutiny when it merged with Live Nation in 2010 and became the world's largest live entertainment provider. A pre-Live Nation Ticketmaster in 1992 also garnered negative attention when Pearl Jam attempted to host a free show in Seattle and Ticketmaster wanted to charge a $1 service fee for each ticket. Pearl Jam rejected this fee and the band chose to sell tickets on their own.

Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster continued to quarrel throughout the 1990s, leading to a congressional hearing after the band accused Ticketmaster of holding a monopoly over live event ticket sales. In 1995, Congress declared that Ticketmaster had not violated antitrust laws. Now, the DOJ is suing Live Nation and Ticketmaster for violating these very same antitrust laws.

One of the de facto faces of the Ticketmaster debacle is none other than billionaire pop star and global sensation Taylor Swift.

Ticketmaster and The Eras Tour Presale

Swift and Ticketmaster turned heads in 2022 when the ticketing platform left millions of Swifties in the dust as they scrambled to purchase tickets for the Eras Tour. When pre-sale tickets went on sale on November 15, 2022, the website began to fall apart.

There was a "historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up" in the online queue. Chairman of Live Nation Greg Maffei claimed that 14 million users tried to get tickets when the website was only prepared for 1.5 million users with presale codes.

Fans reported that they were "either completely logged out or in a queue of 2,000-plus people strong that appeared frozen."

Ticketmaster claimed that they were working to solve the website's issues, telling fans to "hang tight" in the queue. The ticketing platform then postponed the remainder of the Eras Tour presale after "hundreds of thousands of tickets" were sold. The tour sold over two million tickets in its first day of presale.

Maffei would later credit Ticketmaster for being "the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world," citing that Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), Taylor Swift's promoting group, "chose to use [Ticketmaster.]"

"Even our competitors want to come on our platform," he claimed.

However, a representative for AEG countered this, saying that "Ticketmaster's exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the 'Eras' tour required us to ticket through their system...We didn't have a choice."

Swifties Sue

Fans of Swift did not forgive nor forget Ticketmaster's actions.

The first lawsuit from Swifties was filed on Dec. 2, 2022, with 26 plaintiffs alleging that the company used unlawful business practices such as "intentional deception" and "fraud, price fixing and antitrust violations." Both parties moved to a formal trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

"Fans are the reason for the live experience, they need to do better," said lead plaintiff Julia Barfuss.

On Dec.15, 2022, another fan, Michelle Sterioff, brought suit against Ticketmaster, claiming that it violated the California Cartwright Act and the California Unfair Competition Law during the now infamous pre-sale. She was joined by dozens of fans.

"Ticketmaster...has violated the policy, spirit, and letter of [antitrust] laws by imposing agreements and policies at the retail and wholesale level that have prevented effective price competition across a wide swath of online ticket sales," reads the complaint.

Sterioff also alleges that Ticketmaster "intentionally and purposefully misled ticket purchasers by allowing scalpers and bots access to TaylorSwiftTix presale" and that both fans and artists have "no choice" but to use Ticketmaster to buy and sell tickets.

In 2023, Sterioff submitted a voluntary dismissal notice to terminate the suit, but it is "unclear if any kind of settlement has been reached in the suit."

2023 Congressional Hearing

Swifties weren't the only party to challenge Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

The ticketing giant was brought before Congress in January 2023.

"The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster's dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said prior to the congressional hearing.

Klobuchar pointed to three specific problems with Ticketmaster: It controls nearly 80% of the ticketing and live event market, controls promotion for nearly all of these events and owns -- or has exclusive contracts with -- the majority of large venues, thereby nearly forcing artists to use Live Nation.

Joe Berchtold, President and CFO of Live Nation Entertainment, was grilled by members of Congress.

He claimed that Live Nation owns only 5% of venues in the United States, but the company currently "controls more than half of all concert promotions at major U.S. concert venues." Live Nation is also responsible for 80% of ticket sales for "major concert venues."

Berchtold offered an apology, saying that Live Nation and Ticketmaster "apologized to the fans. We apologize to Ms. Swift. We need to do better, and we will do better."

Both Republicans and Democrats joined together to challenge Berchtold -and make awful Taylor Swift puns.

"Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, 'I'm the problem, it's me,'" said Sen. Richard Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT.)

"Karma's a relaxing thought. Aren't you [Ticketmaster] envious that for you it's not?" said Mike Lee (R-UT.)

U.S. Department of Justice Files Suit

The DOJ was next to file suit against Live Nation in May 2024, alleging that the company violated antitrust laws. The DOJ hopes to break up the industry giant.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) slammed the company in a recent piece for Rolling Stone, pointing to the company's "Ticketmaster Tax," which can cost one third of a ticket's face value. The tax stems from a range of fees, including "service," "handling," "payment processing" and "facility" fees.

Warren appeared to express optimism in the DOJ's venture, writing that "By enforcing the antitrust laws, the Justice Department may add a little fresh competition to an industry that has been under the thumb of a single corporate giant for too long," she wrote.

AEG CEO Jay Marciano recently championed the DOJ, nearly confirming that the Live Nation monopoly will be broken up.

"This lawsuit is not simply DOJ suing to break up a monopoly; at stake is the entire ecosystem of our industry, one that has long suffered from a badly broken ticketing model," said Marciano.

He believes that the lawsuit will give artists a choice in who tickets their shows, lower ticketing fees and "ultimately, that artists and fans will have access to what we all want: more and higher quality live entertainment experiences at a price that fans can afford."

READ ALSO: Sen. Elizabeth Warren Slams Ticketmaster: 'Just Does Not Work Well'

Tags

Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour, Ticketmaster, Live Nation