HARRISBURG – After a major fiasco involving ticket sales for pop star and Pennsylvania native Taylor Swift’s next concert tour, the office of Attorney General and Governor-elect Josh Shapiro has received thousands of consumer complaints from state residents against live event giant Ticketmaster.
Following the release of Swift’s 10th album Midnights last month and its subsequent chart-topping success, the singer-songwriter announced “The Eras Tour”, which will feature her performing music from each of her recorded albums in one concert.
Pre-sale dates were announced and the singer’s fans signed up for Ticketmaster’s “Verified Fan” program, which the company had previously enacted to ensure that a given artist’s fans were more likely to have a chance to secure tickets, as opposed to automated online bots or ticket scalpers, who would then look to get maximum resale value on tickets for popular shows like Swift’s.
About 40% of those who signed up for the “Verified Fan” program were given pre-sale codes to facilitate their purchases, while the remaining 60% were wait-listed.
But even for the 40% of fans chosen to participate in the Nov. 15 pre-sale, there was no guarantee of success. Though Ticketmaster claimed that 2 million tickets were sold on the day of the pre-sale, the largest amount ever for a single artist in one day – many fans commented that they were unable to buy tickets to Swift’s shows, as a combination of overwhelming demand and automated bots crashed Ticketmaster’s website and depleted the ticket supply.
A large number of tickets that were bought during the pre-sale can now be found on third-party websites selling for thousands to tens of thousands of dollars each, an exponential increase over their original face value.
Due to the pre-sale snafu and what the company called “an inability to meet demand,” Ticketmaster then cancelled its general public sale of tickets to Swift’s shows.
In a Nov. 18 statement published on her Instagram, Swift indirectly referenced Ticketmaster for its role in the controversy, without mentioning the company by name.
“It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans. 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. There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” Swift said.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
The same day, Ticketmaster apologized to Swift fans feeling burned.
“We strive to make ticket buying as easy as possible for fans, but that hasn’t been the case for many people trying to buy tickets for Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’. We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” the company said, in part.
While Ticketmaster also alleged that AEG Presents, the promotional company which handles Swift’s tours, chose to work with it, AEG rejected such a claim and stated that it was compelled to join forces with Ticketmaster because “its exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on ‘The Eras Tour’ required us to ticket through their system.”
On “The Eras Tour”, Swift is scheduled to play five concerts in Pennsylvania: From May 12-14 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia and on June 16-17 at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh.
In the wake of the debacle, Shapiro’s office and its Consumer Protection Bureau announced it would accept complaints regarding Ticketmaster.
According to Jacklin Rhoads, Communications Director for the Attorney General’s Office, about 2,500 such complaints have already been received.
Shapiro further provided a statement on the outreach to consumers regarding Ticketmaster.
“So far, my office has received more than 2,500 complaints about the ticket sales process for upcoming Taylor Swift concerts. By filing these complaints, Pennsylvanians are empowering us to investigate and that’s what we are doing. Our team has already begun to carefully review all complaints. If any Pennsylvanian has a consumer problem, this office is here to work for you,” Shapiro said.
Investigations into Ticketmaster have also been opened by the attorneys general of Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee, and it was recently confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice had previously opened a separate, antitrust investigation into the company, which pre-dated the Swift ticket sale debacle.
U.S. lawmakers have commented on the situation, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY) tweeting an accusation that Ticketmaster operates a monopoly in ticket sales and remarking that its 12-year-old merger with Live Nation, a premier live event venue company, “should never have been approved.”
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D–MN) and Mike Lee (R–UT) also announced on Nov. 23 that a U.S. Senate antitrust panel will convene a future hearing to address Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s “lack of competition in the industry.”
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com