Photo: Eve Rinaldi / Flickr. License: CC BY-SA 2.0
A disastrous presale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour has landed Ticketmaster (and its parent company Live Nation) in hot water with an army of Swifties—and (only a slightly more powerful force) the US Justice Department.
Catch up: Ticketmaster’s systems couldn’t handle the traffic they received when presale tickets for Swift’s upcoming shows went on sale last week, causing the website and app to crash for many users.
- Ticketmaster then cancelled the public ticket sale, leaving disappointed fans to buy tickets at heavily marked-up prices on resale markets.
- Swift blasted Ticketmaster for failing to prepare for the demand, saying the company had assured her they could handle a spike in traffic.
Enter the US Justice Department, which announced that it is investigating whether Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation Entertainment, has broken antitrust laws and engaged in anti-competitive practices to crush rivals.
- Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 to create a powerhouse that controls 70% of the market for live event ticketing.
- Critics argue that Live Nation’s dominance over live events allows it to charge customers exorbitant fees and bully artists and venues that don’t use the Ticketmaster platform.
Why it matters: The US Justice Department has taken a stricter line on antitrust cases in recent years, blocking several major mergers and acquisitions. There’s now a real chance the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco leads them to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, a decision that would be a seismic shift in the live event business.