The Ticketmaster Monopoly

In November 2022, Taylor Swift announced her "Eras" tour—her first tour in five years. Millions of Swifties awaited the coveted ticket pre-sale opportunities, ready to overcome the odds of securing seats for the hugely anticipated and limited run of shows. However, what should have been an exciting day for Taylor's fanbase quickly descended into chaos.

The Eras Tour Disaster

On November 15th, the pre-sale for "Verified Fans" granted special access codes devolved into a technical nightmare. Ticketmaster's website experienced widespread outages, prolonged queues that froze for hours, and other crippling issues under the immense strain of over 3.5 million system requests from fans—a staggering number that overwhelmed Ticketmaster's capabilities.

Hundreds of thousands were unceremoniously booted from queues without securing tickets. Two days later, Ticketmaster made the unprecedented move to cancel sales to the general public, citing "insufficient remaining ticket inventory" despite widespread reports of resale listings already appearing on secondary markets at exorbitant prices.

The Monopoly Problem

The chaos reignited long-standing criticisms over Ticketmaster's monopolistic control of the live event ticketing industry and its purported abusive practices. Critics argue the debacle exemplified how the company's dominant market position enables it to treat consumers unfairly with little repercussions.

Ticketmaster, the primary ticket vendor for most major concert tours and venues in the United States, has faced accusations of anti-competitive behavior for decades. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation, the largest promoter of live events, creating a $28 billion behemoth. This vertical integration further strengthened Ticketmaster's dominance by bundling ticketing, venue operating rights, sponsorship, and promotion under one corporate umbrella.

Critics argue Ticketmaster has leveraged this unrivaled market power to impose exorbitant service fees on consumers, currently tacking on additional facility charges and processing fees of up to 78% of the base ticket price.

Political Firestorm

The PR nightmare of the Swift ticketing situation swiftly escalated into the political arena, with numerous members of Congress calling Ticketmaster's monopolistic practices abusive and anti-competitive.

"This is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger harms consumers by creating a monopoly," Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, adding the merged company should be broken up.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, who leads the Senate antitrust panel, stated the debacle was "a wake-up call" highlighting the need for strengthened enforcement of anti-monopoly laws. She questioned whether the Department of Justice was wise to allow Live Nation and Ticketmaster's merger in 2010.

Senate Hearing

In January 2023, Klobuchar's panel held a Senate hearing to examine lack of competition in the ticketing industry. Senators grilled Live Nation President Joe Berchtold over the multiple competition concerns and allegations that the company deliberately allows bots and resellers to flourish, undercutting fans.

"To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition," remarked Senator Richard Blumenthal, accusing Live Nation of "forcing food down the mouths" of consumers.

A Larger Movement

In many ways, the Ticketmaster-Taylor Swift controversy represents the tip of the iceberg in mounting public discontent over corporate consolidation, monopolistic market control, and perceived lack of competition across major sectors of the economy.

"Large companies are bleeding Americans dry through excessive fees, rising prices, and shady business practices enabled by lack of competition," stated Morgan Harper, policy lead at the American Economic Liberties Project.

The swift and intense bipartisan backlash over the Ticketmaster fiasco mirrors other recent high-profile antitrust battles taking aim at the monopolistic practices of dominant technology giants like Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Conclusion

While Live Nation maintains its market dominance and fee structures are defensible, the company's public relations nightmare over Swift's tour has helped the critics arguing the company wields monopolistic power to the detriment of consumers. Whether this controversy will ultimately deal a death blow to Ticketmaster's market control remains to be seen, but it has certainly strengthened the political will to challenge monopolistic practices across industries—the live events space may be the next target.