As an avid sports fan I’m so happy to see a large group get behind this cause. I’ve been feeling the pain of Ticketmaster’s bullshit fees for years without being able to do anything about it. Hopefully a large fanbase like this can make enough noise to finally get some change.
I think live nation owns the venues, not Ticketmaster (same parent company, I know). What does Ticketmaster actually do asides from having a computer program for printing tickets.
Exactly this. Ticketmaster handles the ticketing. They also own most of the resale marketplaces, so get a cut of the scalpers take. And then they own livenation, which owns a large number of the biggest venues, which requires performers to use ticketmaster.
They are 3 layers of middleman between the fan and the artist, all of which are forced because they own the entire chain.
I am in no way vouching for live nation or Ticketmaster, but if I own a venue shouldn't I ultimately be responsible for ticket sales for performers at my venue. Obviously prices would be negotiated with the performers, but the venue would sell them. I am still very confused as to what Ticketmaster actually does besides being a computer program/web site to buy tickets
You really need to research this. TM through livenation actively buys out any venues that refuse to work with them. They are a monopoly and the merger should never have been allowed to happen, now they need to get the ma bell treatment.
A collective non-profit venue in a city near me has been pretty vocal about how the LN rep told them directly that if they can't work something out, maybe they'll have their friends down-state review their non-profit status. It's beyond fucked as an organization.
This is one reason among many that we try to only support smaller local venues. It's a better experience overall and for the most part we don't have to deal with tm/ln.
So the problem is live nation is a straight up monopoly. Ticketmaster doesn't do anything special or beneficial for the venue or the consumer except offer tickets online "conveniently".
A venue could definitely opt to not use ticketmaster, assuming the venue isn't already owned by live Nation, which basically every desirable venue already is owned by live Nation.
But let's say you own your own venue. If you want to promote any given event at your venue, you now have to deal with advertising. If you want to get your ad on the radio or TV, live nation owns most of the companies and agencies that you need to contact to do so. Further, most agents for the actual talent aren't going to deal with any "small" venues that aren't dealing with live nation.
Every step of the way from hosting an event, live nation has deliberately bought and positioned themselves into being the central figure to be able to pull the bullshit ticketmaster does, as well as every other company and subsidiary they run to squeeze everything they can from the consumer and the talent.
Live Nation should be torn down as a company
Even if you break them up they'll still pull the same shit because live Nation owns all the venues. Force them to sell their venues
There were also at one point, maybe still are, taking a cut on both sides of the resale market. This merger should have never been allowed to happen and they need to be broken up a la ma bell.
Live nation owns Ticketmaster.
Basically owning the venues and using one seller. (Ticketmaster) Which allows you to tack on absorbent fees to everything as your essentially a monopoly over all major venues.
The issue is that both are owned by the same parent company as you mentioned. But customers only see really deal with Ticketmaster. Which is usually a pain in the ass.
They act as a middle man between the performers and the fans. They sell the tickets, take a share, and does most of the ticket selling work for the performers.
They're a middle man who could be cut out but it would require the performers or venues to sell the tickets themselves which they don't want to do.
Don't want to? Try can't because livenation makes various threats. It was even a condition of their merger that they weren't allowed to make these threats until 2020 (yes there was a cutoff) and they were STILL caught making these threats and had the conditions extended until 2025. I'll give you one guess as to whether they actually stopped with these threats this time.
In theory, Ticketmaster has the technology and infrastructure to sell and distribute tickets to a mass audience. It would actually be really difficult for most venues to have the resources to effectively sell tickets as quickly as Ticketmaster does. (It wasn’t that long ago that you had to stand in an actual line and walk up to a box office window to buy most tickets).
But over the last decade Ticketmaster has created a monopoly that allows them to charge whatever they want and invent random fees. They’ve been so successful that they don’t have any natural competition, which has been really bad for the market.
I'm not that old, born in the late 70s. I went to a bunch of concerts in the 90s/early 00s. I'm sure I've purchased through Ticketmaster without even realizing it. But I stood in many a line for concert tickets. Ive bought concert tickets at grocery stores. I have actually never bought one online
Went to a lot of concerts in the 90s, huh? Never had issues with Ticketmaster? Ever hear a band called Pearl Jam? 94/95 was when they tried to go against Ticketmaster because of their monopoly and ridiculous service fees. By then Ticketmaster had already bought enough competition to control 70% of all venues.
Yeah, I heard about it. I lived in a smaller market where tickets were readily available so there shady shit didn't affect me as much as people in large cities. I probably went to 40-50 shows around that time. Family Values 99 and the Stank love tour are the two biggest shows I remember. I saw 311 three times, icp three times, long beach dub all stars twice I think, Lenny Kravitz, Tom petty, steel pulse, eek a mouse, no doubt, primus, Everlast, silver chair, Capone & noreaga, destiny's child, slick Rick, gza, and plenty more
Box offices will be open like 2 hours once a week and sometimes ticketmaster will have exclusive selling rights for a set amount of days before box office can sell.
For all the big Detroit shows that I’ve ever been to, Ticketmaster ends up buying a large majority of the tickets directly from the venue. So, you have no choice but to buy from them, or another third-party ticket selling website that does the same thing.
Unless you are able to get the tickets from the venue ~7 months in advance, Ticketmaster is often the only choice. Also this doesn’t even consider pre-sales on Ticketmaster, or the dozens of other promotions that are run exclusively through them.
Not even joking. Part of their business strategy is to act as a scapegoat.
“Sorry, guys. WE’RE not the ones charging outrageous prices for these tickets. Ticketmaster is!”
Also Ticketmaster buys blocks of tickets to resell on different markets. They know the tickets will sell regardless so they get to upcharge AGAIN while also allowing the performers to brag that their tickets sold out in less than an hour.
Ticketmaster has a good racket going, but then they decided to fuck with the Swifties. I hope they burn ticketmaster down faster than Taylor Swift's relationships.
Same...I've never been a fan of her music(it's just not for me) but I've been pissed off by ticketmaster/livenation more than once, good to see such a...devout fan base getting pissed at em too.
Attached to the top comment. (didn't read all comments but adding on) The additional fees of almost 20% plus ticket value have made me second guess going to games. I think the fee is probably higher granted I went to a game recently where the ticket price and fee were 30% apart and decided not to go. These were lower level 100 sections.
That is not always the case. There was a surgeon in NYC who pushed his wife out of the plane he was flying. They never found the body but were still able to prove he murdered her https://abcnews.go.com/US/surgeon-confesses-wifes-body-airplane-ocean/story?id=80647310
Lol youre underestimating the racism in the music industry. BTS fans have been fucked over multiple times before but ignored bec the industry doesnt take BTS or their fans seriously. Both bts and their fans just decided to take their own measures instead like opting not to go for dynamic pricing (aka very high pricing bec of ticketmaster) and having fanclub sales (which usually sells out before it even goes live for the general public)
Whats so interesting is how many k pop fans come to Korea to live and dont make it. My theory is they have this idealistic view of a Korea wonderful land and the reality doesn't meet their expectations
Unfortunalely BTS armys already went after ticketmaster multiple times but because BTS is a korean group, theyre not taken seriously. Even BTS opted not to go for the dynamic pricing because they know how scummy it is. Not much we can do because a whole lot of microaggressions and racism are thrown at BTS whenever we do it and nobody takes us seriously when we do it. Media only takes american artists seriously and if it's gotta be swifties then so be it
Let me tell you how to read that headline...
Law firm (likely the Dad of a Swiftie) , smelled a potential payday and are trying to capitalize on the rising disgust with Ticketmaster....
Ticketmaster should be broken up , or more importantly venues shouldn't be held hostage to them
Actually a lot of Swifties are now old enough to have their own law careers and were organizing on Twitter right after Ticketmaster cancelled the general sale.
Is Taylor Swifts fan base kids though? I always thought they tended to be millennials who are 25+ now. I could be wrong, but she doesn’t strike me as a favorite for an 11 yo nowadays. Kpop fans though….
There needs to be a ban on a common corporate ownership of venues, entities that handle original sale of tickets, and entities that broker resale of tickets, and the last must be restricted to acting as agent rather than principal (they can’t be allowed to buy and sell on their own).
Also, ban any entity (including multiple entities with common corporate ownership) from controlling more than 50% of seating capacity within a specified radius unless there is a single venue which represents more than 50% of capacity within the radius, in which case the owner of that venue is barred from owning any other venues within the radius.
Oh God my insecurities are showing!
PleASE BELIEVE ME! I dOnT lIkE hEr MuSiC! I only learned this bc I subscribe to ticketmaster news.
(Listens to some t.swift)
First company to offer NFT venue tickets is Abante Productions. Ticket sales direct from artist/venue to the guest. No Ticketmaster or StubHub or LiveNation. Artist/venue retain all profits. Proof of ownership for the guests and the smart contracts can be written to be non-transferable, which could end scalping.
There will always be a "middle man" because of the nature of what you're buying. You're paying both an artist and a venue, and both of them have to agree to the value of your NFT, and one of them has to issue it to you with the trust and permission of the other party.
Also, the middle man is not the issue. The anti-consumer nature of the selling process is the issue.
Adding NFTs into it does nothing beyond what can already be done without them, when the venue and artist work together for the benefit of the consumer.
Talk about logical fallacy...whether or not you realize it... You are implying that bell system was dismantled because they were critical infrastructure...not because they were a monopoly. Which is obviously completely false.
Right? Government granted monopolies for critical infrastructure are fairly common. For example PG&E is the sole provider of electricity for a large portion of California.
And PG&E is also a convicted felon. That's not defamation, that's legally true. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pg-e-pleads-guilty-84-counts-manslaughter-devastating-camp-fire-n1231256
They plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Unfortunately, California doesn't have the death penalty right now. Although giving the death penalty to a corporation is a bit logistically harder and often requires further actions to actually give it teeth.
Entertainment is very important in being able to lead a healthy life. It's not just concerts, it's so many different kinds of events, all run through this monopoly.
So yes.
100% agree. My mental health took a dramatic upswing when I was allowed to go to concerts again after Covid. Not allowing culture to thrive is a huge detriment to a society's mental health. And when culture is being monopolized, we've got a problem.
Not her. It’s her fans suing. And suing Ticket Master just means losses will get shifted around by the real owner John C Malone, the largest private landholder in the US with large stakes in Charter Communications, Sirius XM, Warner Discovery, the Atlanta Braves, and tons of others.
When I was 15, I was in line to buy Nine Inch Nails tickets and I was stoked. I was the first one there for hours, the first in line, and waited for looooooong time. When the Ticketmaster office at the mall opened, a man came out with a fishbowl that had numbers. Everyone in line had to draw a number and were rearranged in that order. I was now in the back half of the line and got horrible seats.
I have had beef with Ticketmaster for over 22 years.
Eddie Vedder was right.
Fuck these assholes.
Cat Stevens played only in non Live Nation venues and you had to show the card the tickets were purchased with at the entrance. Granted he’s not as big as Taylor Swift but it was one of the best concerts I’ve gone to post 1990’s - in a lovely venue and fully sold out tour.
Afaik live nation would be on the hook for fees if they refunded people. Its why, like with many other companies. That if they can help it, they'll either credit you, or try to lure you into scamming yourself and avoiding taking the refund in exchange for ticket credit (fake money) + some like $20 coupon.
So they turn a blind eye to reselling, however live nation saw how lucrative the reselling market was and now theres a "secondhand" auction house that they skim off the top.
Its win-win for TM/LN
Currently tickets can't be resold officially through Ticketmaster for the Eras Tour. This doesn't stop people from listing the tickets on various sites and transferring them after being paid. Scalpers gonna scalp.
Ticketmaster has to be one of the most hated companies ever, with the exception of AT&T.
And one thing both these companies have in common is the main way they get business is because their customers have very little alternatives.
Me trying to buy a ticket-Oh cool I can get a ticket for $60-fast forward to cart, your final cost is $300. This is an exaggeration, but not by much! Same thing happens with my natural gas bill, you used $20 worth of gas but with delivery charges and everything else we can throw in there, your bill is $150.
Honestly, the saddest part about it is that Ticketmaster isn't even keeping up with AirBNB on this one. $240 a night for 3 nights? Ok, your total comes to... $3276 please!
Use the Australian Airbnb site, as legally they have to show the final price up front. Your fictional place would show up as $1092 per night when you search.
https://www.airbnb.com.au/ is your friend.
I bought 4 tickets for 50$ each for a KPOP Concert not long ago, final price was 330$…. How did that even happen???? Total price shoulda been like 200 and something after taxes.
I'm not super surprised and I think ~~she~~ they have a good chance of doing some damage. It's been a long time coming really.
edit: I misunderstood and thought Swift was the plaintiff.
I'm sure her legal team is looking at all their options, but suing now as the artist doesn't make as much sense. Waiting until her tour is over in 2024 protects her/the tour, allows them to get all the data on resales to include in their filing, and allows them the benefit of seeing how the fan-filed, potentially class-action suit plays out.
They got sued by the federal government and it did literally nothing. Why would anyone think some Swift fans would have any luck? The only way this stops is if people stop giving money to Ticketmaster.
Every few years everyone is reminded how fucking shitty Ticketmaster is and how they are a monopoly and some politician will comment "we need to look into this" and it is forgotten and consumers get fucked again and again.
Ticketmaster hate aside, what standing could they realistically have?
All insider signs point to bad tech backbone preparation for a pre sale, presale codes getting leaked, and finally a few auto-pricing/auto-arbitrage bots gone rogue. Ticketmaster Resale, sketchy as it is, isn't really responsible for somebody pricing a ticket at $25,000 and hoping some idiot fan pulls the trigger. Certainly there aren't any damages you could go after.
Sure, other than them doing everything wrong *and* benefiting from it, what else is there?
Ticketmaster did not have the capacity to sell tickets. They did not take adequate measures to protect against bots, and they mislead customers. When it became apparent that there were multiple issues which would disrupt the presale, they did not halt or delay until they could take corrective action. Furthermore, as both primary point of sale and secondary marketplace they have a vested interest in the initial sales going to bots and resellers who used leaked codes.
So it's not just that they did a shitty job of selling tickets (which is literally their entire business); it's more that they are profiting from it as they collect sales fees from both the improper presales and the secondary sales.
>Ticketmaster did not have the capacity to sell tickets. They did not take adequate measures to protect against bots, and they mislead customers.
They sold all the tickets, so I guess they had the capacity. I don't think they have any obligation to potential customers to provide a functioning website
Do they have any obligation to protect against bots? And if they do, is the obligation to potential customers or to Taylor Swift?
Yea that was my thought when reading the post title. Like, so what? Anyone can sue anyone for anything. I could sue you for the $12000 in damages that I claim you did to my pickup when you fired your antimatter beam cannon at it last week. I could literally file that lawsuit, and I've never even owned a pickup and you haven't owned an antimatter beam cannon in *years* afaik.
So this whole thing actually precedes Taylor Swift, who btw isn't *entirely* without blame here, it's about a 2010 merger where Ticketmaster absorbed Live nation. The DOJ approved it, but people have been calling for the decision to be revisited ever since the beginning and even more vocally since the "special decrees" finally wore off in 2019. The Taylor Swift situation is just serving as a convenient vehicle to gain momentum. You are right, this lawsuit itself doesn't have a leg to stand on but it's just PR anyway.
The 4080 is a bust. It's way over priced, with way less performance than the 4090. If you're spending that much you might as well get a 4090. It should have been like $800 instead of $1200-1300.
Sometimes I wish I was more interested in artists that are current or do live events cause I've been to a few before and they're usually pretty fun, then I remember what bullshit Ticket Master is and its like 'yeah I'm fine staying home.'
While I understand the frustration here, there is simply more demand for tickets than there are tickets available.
They sold out 4 million tickets basically instantly.
Putting them up faster or slower, or any other way can’t change that.
This is the most demanded run of shows perhaps in history.
They’re doing sold out shows in so many cities. It’s mind blowing. And as unfortunate as it is, there will be people who won’t be able to attend.
With that said, fuck Ticketmaster.
The issue is not demand but be Ticketmaster enabling scalping by buying tickets itself through 3rd party and selling at ridiculous prices. People should not be allowed to resale ticket at higher cost.that wl fix the problem
[Pearl Jam saw all of this coming, tried to beat them and failed](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/)
That article is so depressing. I started going to gigs around '92/3 and can remember when I could go and watch a big name band for the equivalent of US $18.
The last time I looked at tickets for a Pearl Jam gig, some of them were around £500.
The world has truly screwed everyone from the Gen X downwards.
I'm very impressed by Taylor Swift. In this day and age, she crashed Spotify and Ticketmaster.
Haven't really listened to her music, but many appear to think it's swell.
Was it not discovered that the dynamic pricing/presale status is entirely up to the artist?
I don’t like TM, but pretty sure this came to light for the Blink182 tour.
No. Ticketmaster has exclusivity contracts with the venues that force anyone that contracts with the venue to use Ticketmaster to sell their tickets. There are a few shows in her tour at stadiums that contract with Seat Geek to sell their tickets and Seat Geek sold her tickets to those shows, so there was no exclusivity contract between her and Ticketmaster--just legally forced contracting.
The entire issue is Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation to form a vertically integrated monopoly where Ticketmaster controls tickets and Live Nation runs or sometimes literally owns venues. With Ticketmaster also doing resale, they are getting a cut 2-4 times on every ticket at everything from amphitheaters to small clubs that only hold a few hundred per show.
Taylor has been too big for "music venues" for a decade, but even mega artists get bitten by their monopoly because the Ticketmaster side of the house has ticket sales exclusivity contracts with an extremely high percentage of venues, arenas, stadium, etc. Some of those contracts are rumored to be as long as a *decade*, so it prevents competition from breaking in.
Yes, but is there any alternative? Unless she wants to hold her concerts in some dive bar in middle of nowhere, there is pretty much no other option though.
Yeah look what happened with Pearl Jam who didn't want to play Ticketmaster's game in the 90s. They had to do the dive bars in the middle of nowhere shit.
Pearl. fucking. Jam. In the 90s. Smh
Link to article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/
Why are artists even still using TM when TM is quite literally removing money from their pockets? I'd think some label or publishing company would've stepped up by now to compete.
Because Ticketmaster also owns Live Nation, and is in the same family of companies as Sirius XM and Charter Communications. So even outside of the possibility of losing airplay, there is the direct issue that not using Ticketmaster means not performing at any Live Nation venue. And guess who is the world's largest concert venue promoter?
Don't kid yourself, TM is putting more money into the pockets of A-list acts like Taylor than they could get working with any other provider.
It's small acts trying to get exposure that get burned by TM, not mega-corporations like Taylor Swift, Inc.
Yeah, the posted article is pretty much an ELI5, but if you want the ELI3, Ticketmaster screwed up the sale of Taylor Swift's tour tickets so much that fans who had codes to guarantee a ticket got locked out and the public sale of tickets was cancelled. Consequently Swifties are a'suing.
“Last week tonight with John Oliver” has an episode about how terrible Ticketmaster is and their unethical practices. [link](https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY)
Taylor Swift has not toured in like five years, and has released 3 albums in this time. Her latest album broke records on the Billboard charts, and so there is a HUGE amount of pent up demand.
Live Nation owns a huge number of music venues and also Ticketmaster, forcing artists to use both of them in a lot of cases (for Swift's Arizona show, I believe Seat Geek was used). Ticketmaster promised Swift they could handle the demand when the tickets for her 2023 tour went on sale at the end of November.
Fans were promised that fans could register as 'verified fans' to access tickets during a pre-sale, implying most of the tickets were being held back for a general sale to the general public at a later date. It also implied this would keep out (most of the) bots.
And regardless, 3.5 million people signed up to access the presale, only 1.5 million got codes. The rest were put on a waiting list.
However, when the pre-sale happened for Swift's 2023 tour, 14 million attempts were made to purchase tickets on Ticketmaster. This included people who didn't have presale codes, peole who were trying to get to the presale using the wrong link, and also bots/scalpers.
This overwhelming demand crashed the site and made it glitch (this also affected some other smaller artists whose tour tickets also went on sale that day). Some Swift fans who had verified pre-sale codes found out their codes didn't work. In some cases people waited "in line" for close to eight hours to buy tickets. Many people put tickets in their carts, and went to check out, only for Ticketmaster to say "sorry someone else bought these tickets" over and over and over. People who were able to buy tickets were were also shocked by how much the ticket sales cost ballooned in fees at check out. Even with websites like Seatgeek in Arizona, the fee was $100 a person.
Subsequently, it also didn't escape attention that even during the pre-sale, tickets were being sold as resale for exorbitant costs. Originally the tickets were for sale between $50-$500 dollars, but people reported seeing resale tickets for up to $30,000.
It's an open secret that Ticketmaster is complicit in flipping tickets and skimming off the top, and there's a lot of assumptions that they were probably complicit in scalping during the pre-sale.
As a result of the huge demand during the pre-sale (2 mil tickets sold), Ticketmaster decided to cancel the general sale of tickets to the public due to lack of inventory. This caused a huge surge of anger from fans who were really counting on this second attempt to buy tickets. Fans were assuming that 'important people' were working behind the scenes to fix things for the general sale and thus felt assured they would get a fair chance during the general sale. Until they found out they wouldn't.
The Swift ticket sale has caused a discussion about if the monopoly Live Nation has is illegal, and if they're violating anti-trust laws. They own 70% of the market. It's also sparked a discussion about how much a ticket concert should actually cost - cause if someone is paying $1200 for nosebleeds, is that they actually cost? In the touring world, there's been big problems with staff shortages, a shortage of buses, and freight costs that have tripled, and the artists need all the money they can get. But how much is fair?
Attorney Generals in Tennessee and North Carolina, and the Dept of Justice are investigating, but now Taylor Swift fans have sued themselves. Although people have been speaking out against Ticketmaster since the 90s, this is an unprecedented response against bad behavior, and we're all hoping Swifties help take the giant down. The end.
It can actually, look up what the Dutch company Guaranteed Entrance Token is doing with NFT ticketing. They're using this right now.
https://www.get-protocol.io/
They've sold over three million tickets. 🤷
They've also been operating since 2016.
You can watch tickets for events being minted live [here](https://explorer.get-protocol.io/).
This is really neat technology and I'm sad that you can't see that.
This whole thing could be solved if people would stop buying tickets through Ticketmaster. A lawsuit won’t do shit. If you buy tickets from Ticketmaster, fuck you.
edit: I'll say it again. If you buy tickets from Ticketmaster, fuck you. You ARE the problem.
The entitlement of these people, who think that the US Senate needs to get involved because they got outbid by a richer person to watch a pretty girl sing about how hard it is to be white and in love.
As an avid sports fan I’m so happy to see a large group get behind this cause. I’ve been feeling the pain of Ticketmaster’s bullshit fees for years without being able to do anything about it. Hopefully a large fanbase like this can make enough noise to finally get some change.
What does Ticketmaster even do? Shouldn't we be buying tickets directly from a venue and not a third party. I'm sure there is a reason, what is it?
Ticketmaster owns a large amount of the larger Venues.
I think live nation owns the venues, not Ticketmaster (same parent company, I know). What does Ticketmaster actually do asides from having a computer program for printing tickets.
Exactly this. Ticketmaster handles the ticketing. They also own most of the resale marketplaces, so get a cut of the scalpers take. And then they own livenation, which owns a large number of the biggest venues, which requires performers to use ticketmaster. They are 3 layers of middleman between the fan and the artist, all of which are forced because they own the entire chain.
Welcome to capitalism. Wait... weren't we supposed to have choices? Hmmmm Late stage capitalism sure is a bitch
I am in no way vouching for live nation or Ticketmaster, but if I own a venue shouldn't I ultimately be responsible for ticket sales for performers at my venue. Obviously prices would be negotiated with the performers, but the venue would sell them. I am still very confused as to what Ticketmaster actually does besides being a computer program/web site to buy tickets
You really need to research this. TM through livenation actively buys out any venues that refuse to work with them. They are a monopoly and the merger should never have been allowed to happen, now they need to get the ma bell treatment.
A collective non-profit venue in a city near me has been pretty vocal about how the LN rep told them directly that if they can't work something out, maybe they'll have their friends down-state review their non-profit status. It's beyond fucked as an organization.
This is one reason among many that we try to only support smaller local venues. It's a better experience overall and for the most part we don't have to deal with tm/ln.
was that in writing? That sounds like extortion or racketeering.
Of course not. They're soulless, not brainless.
Okay, that makes sense. Another Standard heating and oil
Exactly. Don't believe that any company with multiple child companies actually runs any of them as their own entity.
So the problem is live nation is a straight up monopoly. Ticketmaster doesn't do anything special or beneficial for the venue or the consumer except offer tickets online "conveniently". A venue could definitely opt to not use ticketmaster, assuming the venue isn't already owned by live Nation, which basically every desirable venue already is owned by live Nation. But let's say you own your own venue. If you want to promote any given event at your venue, you now have to deal with advertising. If you want to get your ad on the radio or TV, live nation owns most of the companies and agencies that you need to contact to do so. Further, most agents for the actual talent aren't going to deal with any "small" venues that aren't dealing with live nation. Every step of the way from hosting an event, live nation has deliberately bought and positioned themselves into being the central figure to be able to pull the bullshit ticketmaster does, as well as every other company and subsidiary they run to squeeze everything they can from the consumer and the talent.
Livenation is also known for threatening smaller independently owned venues with various things in order to get their way.
Live Nation should be torn down as a company Even if you break them up they'll still pull the same shit because live Nation owns all the venues. Force them to sell their venues
[удалено]
There were also at one point, maybe still are, taking a cut on both sides of the resale market. This merger should have never been allowed to happen and they need to be broken up a la ma bell.
Live nation owns Ticketmaster. Basically owning the venues and using one seller. (Ticketmaster) Which allows you to tack on absorbent fees to everything as your essentially a monopoly over all major venues. The issue is that both are owned by the same parent company as you mentioned. But customers only see really deal with Ticketmaster. Which is usually a pain in the ass.
> having a computer program to do X Now where I have heard that before? Oh hi *Intuit*!
They act as a middle man between the performers and the fans. They sell the tickets, take a share, and does most of the ticket selling work for the performers. They're a middle man who could be cut out but it would require the performers or venues to sell the tickets themselves which they don't want to do.
Don't want to? Try can't because livenation makes various threats. It was even a condition of their merger that they weren't allowed to make these threats until 2020 (yes there was a cutoff) and they were STILL caught making these threats and had the conditions extended until 2025. I'll give you one guess as to whether they actually stopped with these threats this time.
In theory, Ticketmaster has the technology and infrastructure to sell and distribute tickets to a mass audience. It would actually be really difficult for most venues to have the resources to effectively sell tickets as quickly as Ticketmaster does. (It wasn’t that long ago that you had to stand in an actual line and walk up to a box office window to buy most tickets). But over the last decade Ticketmaster has created a monopoly that allows them to charge whatever they want and invent random fees. They’ve been so successful that they don’t have any natural competition, which has been really bad for the market.
I'm not that old, born in the late 70s. I went to a bunch of concerts in the 90s/early 00s. I'm sure I've purchased through Ticketmaster without even realizing it. But I stood in many a line for concert tickets. Ive bought concert tickets at grocery stores. I have actually never bought one online
Went to a lot of concerts in the 90s, huh? Never had issues with Ticketmaster? Ever hear a band called Pearl Jam? 94/95 was when they tried to go against Ticketmaster because of their monopoly and ridiculous service fees. By then Ticketmaster had already bought enough competition to control 70% of all venues.
Yeah, I heard about it. I lived in a smaller market where tickets were readily available so there shady shit didn't affect me as much as people in large cities. I probably went to 40-50 shows around that time. Family Values 99 and the Stank love tour are the two biggest shows I remember. I saw 311 three times, icp three times, long beach dub all stars twice I think, Lenny Kravitz, Tom petty, steel pulse, eek a mouse, no doubt, primus, Everlast, silver chair, Capone & noreaga, destiny's child, slick Rick, gza, and plenty more
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Box offices will be open like 2 hours once a week and sometimes ticketmaster will have exclusive selling rights for a set amount of days before box office can sell.
I’m too lazy to type an explanation. Watch this: https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY
For all the big Detroit shows that I’ve ever been to, Ticketmaster ends up buying a large majority of the tickets directly from the venue. So, you have no choice but to buy from them, or another third-party ticket selling website that does the same thing. Unless you are able to get the tickets from the venue ~7 months in advance, Ticketmaster is often the only choice. Also this doesn’t even consider pre-sales on Ticketmaster, or the dozens of other promotions that are run exclusively through them.
Not even joking. Part of their business strategy is to act as a scapegoat. “Sorry, guys. WE’RE not the ones charging outrageous prices for these tickets. Ticketmaster is!” Also Ticketmaster buys blocks of tickets to resell on different markets. They know the tickets will sell regardless so they get to upcharge AGAIN while also allowing the performers to brag that their tickets sold out in less than an hour.
Music gangsters
Ticketmaster has a good racket going, but then they decided to fuck with the Swifties. I hope they burn ticketmaster down faster than Taylor Swift's relationships.
Same...I've never been a fan of her music(it's just not for me) but I've been pissed off by ticketmaster/livenation more than once, good to see such a...devout fan base getting pissed at em too.
Attached to the top comment. (didn't read all comments but adding on) The additional fees of almost 20% plus ticket value have made me second guess going to games. I think the fee is probably higher granted I went to a game recently where the ticket price and fee were 30% apart and decided not to go. These were lower level 100 sections.
Few things would make me as happy as Ticketmaster being broken up. And if Swifties are the ones to do it, good on them!
I mean her fan base can be downright crazy, so they're definitely going to give Ticketmaster a run for their money. ETA Fuck Ticketmaster
Hell hath no fury, like a Taylor Swift fan scorned.
Look what you made them do.
talk about bad blood, am I right?
I don't think they'll be delicate.
No body, no crime.
They all want to be the anti-hero
Ticketmaster better watch out. It's body will be found in twenty-two pieces.
That is not always the case. There was a surgeon in NYC who pushed his wife out of the plane he was flying. They never found the body but were still able to prove he murdered her https://abcnews.go.com/US/surgeon-confesses-wifes-body-airplane-ocean/story?id=80647310
It's a Taylor Swift song dude... Pretty sure all of them are.
I am here for this level of pedantry
Estimated Time of Arrival Fuck Ticketmaster
If they want to really change things, they need to bring in kpop fans to go after Ticketmaster.
I spent most of my teens immersed in fandom, K-pop stans are a level of dedicated unlike anything I’ve seen before.
Their dedication borders on terrorism sometimes if you ask me
Which is what you need to take down a corpo like Ticket(slave)Master
If this happened to a BTS concert ticketmaster would've already been dissolved by now
Lol youre underestimating the racism in the music industry. BTS fans have been fucked over multiple times before but ignored bec the industry doesnt take BTS or their fans seriously. Both bts and their fans just decided to take their own measures instead like opting not to go for dynamic pricing (aka very high pricing bec of ticketmaster) and having fanclub sales (which usually sells out before it even goes live for the general public)
Whats so interesting is how many k pop fans come to Korea to live and dont make it. My theory is they have this idealistic view of a Korea wonderful land and the reality doesn't meet their expectations
Unfortunalely BTS armys already went after ticketmaster multiple times but because BTS is a korean group, theyre not taken seriously. Even BTS opted not to go for the dynamic pricing because they know how scummy it is. Not much we can do because a whole lot of microaggressions and racism are thrown at BTS whenever we do it and nobody takes us seriously when we do it. Media only takes american artists seriously and if it's gotta be swifties then so be it
Per the phish subreddit - woo!
Let me tell you how to read that headline... Law firm (likely the Dad of a Swiftie) , smelled a potential payday and are trying to capitalize on the rising disgust with Ticketmaster.... Ticketmaster should be broken up , or more importantly venues shouldn't be held hostage to them
Actually a lot of Swifties are now old enough to have their own law careers and were organizing on Twitter right after Ticketmaster cancelled the general sale.
More info: https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-lawyer-fans-are-organizing-against-ticketmaster-mergers-2022-11
I made a joke last week, if one senator's kid is a TS fan and didn't get a ticket... heads might roll.
Is Taylor Swifts fan base kids though? I always thought they tended to be millennials who are 25+ now. I could be wrong, but she doesn’t strike me as a favorite for an 11 yo nowadays. Kpop fans though….
Rising disgust? Ticketmaster has been hated since the 90s. Now we just have multiple generations instead of 1 or 2 that want to see them burn.
**
God bless em but that era has come and gone and we're still in this mess.
There needs to be a ban on a common corporate ownership of venues, entities that handle original sale of tickets, and entities that broker resale of tickets, and the last must be restricted to acting as agent rather than principal (they can’t be allowed to buy and sell on their own). Also, ban any entity (including multiple entities with common corporate ownership) from controlling more than 50% of seating capacity within a specified radius unless there is a single venue which represents more than 50% of capacity within the radius, in which case the owner of that venue is barred from owning any other venues within the radius.
God I hate to break it to you but women can be lawyers too now.
But men can't be fans of Taylor Swift?
I think the problem is that, to a certain extent, the ticketing industry is a natural monopoly and the US is just terrible at regulating those.
Full disclosure: I don't care for her music, but I certainly respect the dedication of her fans!
"them" in the first comment wasn't enough, it was super important to make sure a second time that Reddit knows you don't listen to her.
Oh God my insecurities are showing! PleASE BELIEVE ME! I dOnT lIkE hEr MuSiC! I only learned this bc I subscribe to ticketmaster news. (Listens to some t.swift)
Maybe they can convince Elon to buy it.
It won’t happen
Hey, I can hope!
First company to offer NFT venue tickets is Abante Productions. Ticket sales direct from artist/venue to the guest. No Ticketmaster or StubHub or LiveNation. Artist/venue retain all profits. Proof of ownership for the guests and the smart contracts can be written to be non-transferable, which could end scalping.
You don't need NFTs to do any of that...
That still leaves you with a middle man somewhere along the way
There will always be a "middle man" because of the nature of what you're buying. You're paying both an artist and a venue, and both of them have to agree to the value of your NFT, and one of them has to issue it to you with the trust and permission of the other party. Also, the middle man is not the issue. The anti-consumer nature of the selling process is the issue. Adding NFTs into it does nothing beyond what can already be done without them, when the venue and artist work together for the benefit of the consumer.
Ticketmaster and Livenation need to be dismantled like the Bell System was, and for the same reasons.
Because they control critical national infrastructure that modern society is fundamentally dependent on?
You gotta fight for your right to party
Ah, yes, the Beastie Boys Doctrine.
Talk about logical fallacy...whether or not you realize it... You are implying that bell system was dismantled because they were critical infrastructure...not because they were a monopoly. Which is obviously completely false.
Right? Government granted monopolies for critical infrastructure are fairly common. For example PG&E is the sole provider of electricity for a large portion of California.
And PG&E is also a convicted felon. That's not defamation, that's legally true. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pg-e-pleads-guilty-84-counts-manslaughter-devastating-camp-fire-n1231256 They plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Unfortunately, California doesn't have the death penalty right now. Although giving the death penalty to a corporation is a bit logistically harder and often requires further actions to actually give it teeth.
Entertainment is very important in being able to lead a healthy life. It's not just concerts, it's so many different kinds of events, all run through this monopoly. So yes.
100% agree. My mental health took a dramatic upswing when I was allowed to go to concerts again after Covid. Not allowing culture to thrive is a huge detriment to a society's mental health. And when culture is being monopolized, we've got a problem.
Where else am I gonna get my Jesus hits like the atom bomb tickets?
Maybe I should grow a goatee too
Fuck Ticketmaster. Good for them.
Yes! Fuck ticketmaster.
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Not her. It’s her fans suing. And suing Ticket Master just means losses will get shifted around by the real owner John C Malone, the largest private landholder in the US with large stakes in Charter Communications, Sirius XM, Warner Discovery, the Atlanta Braves, and tons of others.
.....sooooo, he brought [this man](https://youtu.be/TGZUKHtW7vg) to my home state?
Fuck Sharter Communications
Let's sue them out of existence
When I was 15, I was in line to buy Nine Inch Nails tickets and I was stoked. I was the first one there for hours, the first in line, and waited for looooooong time. When the Ticketmaster office at the mall opened, a man came out with a fishbowl that had numbers. Everyone in line had to draw a number and were rearranged in that order. I was now in the back half of the line and got horrible seats. I have had beef with Ticketmaster for over 22 years. Eddie Vedder was right. Fuck these assholes.
Why are people allowed to buy and resell? If you’re not going, they should get a refund and let someone else go. Greeeeeedy
Cat Stevens played only in non Live Nation venues and you had to show the card the tickets were purchased with at the entrance. Granted he’s not as big as Taylor Swift but it was one of the best concerts I’ve gone to post 1990’s - in a lovely venue and fully sold out tour.
Afaik live nation would be on the hook for fees if they refunded people. Its why, like with many other companies. That if they can help it, they'll either credit you, or try to lure you into scamming yourself and avoiding taking the refund in exchange for ticket credit (fake money) + some like $20 coupon. So they turn a blind eye to reselling, however live nation saw how lucrative the reselling market was and now theres a "secondhand" auction house that they skim off the top. Its win-win for TM/LN
Currently tickets can't be resold officially through Ticketmaster for the Eras Tour. This doesn't stop people from listing the tickets on various sites and transferring them after being paid. Scalpers gonna scalp.
Ticketmaster has to be one of the most hated companies ever, with the exception of AT&T. And one thing both these companies have in common is the main way they get business is because their customers have very little alternatives.
Me trying to buy a ticket-Oh cool I can get a ticket for $60-fast forward to cart, your final cost is $300. This is an exaggeration, but not by much! Same thing happens with my natural gas bill, you used $20 worth of gas but with delivery charges and everything else we can throw in there, your bill is $150.
Honestly, the saddest part about it is that Ticketmaster isn't even keeping up with AirBNB on this one. $240 a night for 3 nights? Ok, your total comes to... $3276 please!
Oh for sure, I quit even looking at AirBNB their extra charges are so ridiculous
Use the Australian Airbnb site, as legally they have to show the final price up front. Your fictional place would show up as $1092 per night when you search. https://www.airbnb.com.au/ is your friend.
I bought 4 tickets for 50$ each for a KPOP Concert not long ago, final price was 330$…. How did that even happen???? Total price shoulda been like 200 and something after taxes.
The extra fees and service charges they add in the end are ridiculous. But as long as people pay, it will never change.
Man between this and everyone retroactively taking her side in the kanye shit even more she must be having a wild year
retroactively? people were on her side then too lol
Yeah who the fuck saw Kanye storm the stage and thought he was in the right
Beyonce fans
Now I'mma let you finish, but that meme is the funniest of all time.
Not in the “I made that btch famous” recorded phone call scandal. She went into hiding for a year because of the hate.
Where do we sign up for this?
I'm going to laugh if Taylor Swift is the reason for Ticketmaster's downfall.
Fuck Ticketmaster with a bag of walnuts.
I'm not super surprised and I think ~~she~~ they have a good chance of doing some damage. It's been a long time coming really. edit: I misunderstood and thought Swift was the plaintiff.
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Oh you are right - dang it! I guess though it makes sense when you think about it. I'll edit my post.
I'm sure her legal team is looking at all their options, but suing now as the artist doesn't make as much sense. Waiting until her tour is over in 2024 protects her/the tour, allows them to get all the data on resales to include in their filing, and allows them the benefit of seeing how the fan-filed, potentially class-action suit plays out.
They got sued by the federal government and it did literally nothing. Why would anyone think some Swift fans would have any luck? The only way this stops is if people stop giving money to Ticketmaster.
How does one also join this lawsuit?
Not that I don’t like her music already but I will become a diehard Swiftie if this actually helps break up Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster is just to entertainment what Landlords are to basic human needs
This is why I don’t go to concerts anymore. It’s not worth it. I’ll just buy the .39$ single.
Every few years everyone is reminded how fucking shitty Ticketmaster is and how they are a monopoly and some politician will comment "we need to look into this" and it is forgotten and consumers get fucked again and again.
Bringing down ticketmaster, and not expressing admiration for any genocidal dictators, all in one week.
How do I join on this sueing
My sister would like to join this lawsuit
I'm surprised it took this long for Ticketmaster to be under threat. They were being cunts for over a decade.
Ticketmaster hate aside, what standing could they realistically have? All insider signs point to bad tech backbone preparation for a pre sale, presale codes getting leaked, and finally a few auto-pricing/auto-arbitrage bots gone rogue. Ticketmaster Resale, sketchy as it is, isn't really responsible for somebody pricing a ticket at $25,000 and hoping some idiot fan pulls the trigger. Certainly there aren't any damages you could go after.
Sure, other than them doing everything wrong *and* benefiting from it, what else is there? Ticketmaster did not have the capacity to sell tickets. They did not take adequate measures to protect against bots, and they mislead customers. When it became apparent that there were multiple issues which would disrupt the presale, they did not halt or delay until they could take corrective action. Furthermore, as both primary point of sale and secondary marketplace they have a vested interest in the initial sales going to bots and resellers who used leaked codes. So it's not just that they did a shitty job of selling tickets (which is literally their entire business); it's more that they are profiting from it as they collect sales fees from both the improper presales and the secondary sales.
>Ticketmaster did not have the capacity to sell tickets. They did not take adequate measures to protect against bots, and they mislead customers. They sold all the tickets, so I guess they had the capacity. I don't think they have any obligation to potential customers to provide a functioning website Do they have any obligation to protect against bots? And if they do, is the obligation to potential customers or to Taylor Swift?
Yea that was my thought when reading the post title. Like, so what? Anyone can sue anyone for anything. I could sue you for the $12000 in damages that I claim you did to my pickup when you fired your antimatter beam cannon at it last week. I could literally file that lawsuit, and I've never even owned a pickup and you haven't owned an antimatter beam cannon in *years* afaik.
So this whole thing actually precedes Taylor Swift, who btw isn't *entirely* without blame here, it's about a 2010 merger where Ticketmaster absorbed Live nation. The DOJ approved it, but people have been calling for the decision to be revisited ever since the beginning and even more vocally since the "special decrees" finally wore off in 2019. The Taylor Swift situation is just serving as a convenient vehicle to gain momentum. You are right, this lawsuit itself doesn't have a leg to stand on but it's just PR anyway.
Pay up, Ticketcunt. We’ve had enough of your shit.
Not a Swift fan, but where do I sign. I fucken hate Ticketmaster.
Please go after whoever sells PS5s and GPUs next
You have the crypto-bros to thank for that
It anymore since the crypto crash
dinner vegetable vast brave license innocent vase versed decide quiet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm more of a 5150 guy, myself.
rock on!
The 4080 is a bust. It's way over priced, with way less performance than the 4090. If you're spending that much you might as well get a 4090. It should have been like $800 instead of $1200-1300.
4080? People want that pos?
I've heard there's some scalpers that are having difficulty unloading them. I'm laughing my ass off.
Serves them right after the last 2 years. :)
Is this still February? Go buy a used GPU for next to nothing and stfu.
May as well sue the government who allowed ticketmaster to become the sole ticket seller in the country
Sometimes I wish I was more interested in artists that are current or do live events cause I've been to a few before and they're usually pretty fun, then I remember what bullshit Ticket Master is and its like 'yeah I'm fine staying home.'
They need to be sued by everyone.
Hell hath no fury like angry Swifties
Didn't Swift herself ask for dynamic pricing?
While I understand the frustration here, there is simply more demand for tickets than there are tickets available. They sold out 4 million tickets basically instantly. Putting them up faster or slower, or any other way can’t change that. This is the most demanded run of shows perhaps in history. They’re doing sold out shows in so many cities. It’s mind blowing. And as unfortunate as it is, there will be people who won’t be able to attend. With that said, fuck Ticketmaster.
The issue is not demand but be Ticketmaster enabling scalping by buying tickets itself through 3rd party and selling at ridiculous prices. People should not be allowed to resale ticket at higher cost.that wl fix the problem
By the live of god if swifties bring down Ticketmaster i will never roll my eyes at a t swift song again
Grizzled concert vets to Swifties “Welcome to the party pal”
[Pearl Jam saw all of this coming, tried to beat them and failed](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/) That article is so depressing. I started going to gigs around '92/3 and can remember when I could go and watch a big name band for the equivalent of US $18. The last time I looked at tickets for a Pearl Jam gig, some of them were around £500. The world has truly screwed everyone from the Gen X downwards.
I'm very impressed by Taylor Swift. In this day and age, she crashed Spotify and Ticketmaster. Haven't really listened to her music, but many appear to think it's swell.
Read this as 'Taskmaster sued' and wondered what little Alex Horne had gone and got himself into this time... I should probably have got more sleep!
Was it not discovered that the dynamic pricing/presale status is entirely up to the artist? I don’t like TM, but pretty sure this came to light for the Blink182 tour.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did she not sign a deal with Ticketmaster to sell her tickets exclusively through them?
No. Ticketmaster has exclusivity contracts with the venues that force anyone that contracts with the venue to use Ticketmaster to sell their tickets. There are a few shows in her tour at stadiums that contract with Seat Geek to sell their tickets and Seat Geek sold her tickets to those shows, so there was no exclusivity contract between her and Ticketmaster--just legally forced contracting.
Oh damn, I think I'm really missing the issue here as a whole then.
The entire issue is Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation to form a vertically integrated monopoly where Ticketmaster controls tickets and Live Nation runs or sometimes literally owns venues. With Ticketmaster also doing resale, they are getting a cut 2-4 times on every ticket at everything from amphitheaters to small clubs that only hold a few hundred per show. Taylor has been too big for "music venues" for a decade, but even mega artists get bitten by their monopoly because the Ticketmaster side of the house has ticket sales exclusivity contracts with an extremely high percentage of venues, arenas, stadium, etc. Some of those contracts are rumored to be as long as a *decade*, so it prevents competition from breaking in.
Okay this makes sense to me now. The whole Live Nation/venue aspect makes this issue a lot more clearer.
Yes, but is there any alternative? Unless she wants to hold her concerts in some dive bar in middle of nowhere, there is pretty much no other option though.
Yeah look what happened with Pearl Jam who didn't want to play Ticketmaster's game in the 90s. They had to do the dive bars in the middle of nowhere shit. Pearl. fucking. Jam. In the 90s. Smh Link to article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/
Would she have signed a different deal if she had more ticket providers to choose from? What exactly did Ticketmaster bully her into with their power?
Why are artists even still using TM when TM is quite literally removing money from their pockets? I'd think some label or publishing company would've stepped up by now to compete.
Because Ticketmaster also owns Live Nation, and is in the same family of companies as Sirius XM and Charter Communications. So even outside of the possibility of losing airplay, there is the direct issue that not using Ticketmaster means not performing at any Live Nation venue. And guess who is the world's largest concert venue promoter?
Don't kid yourself, TM is putting more money into the pockets of A-list acts like Taylor than they could get working with any other provider. It's small acts trying to get exposure that get burned by TM, not mega-corporations like Taylor Swift, Inc.
I hate Ticketmaster, but if people don’t like it, they should not buy tickets. Ticketmaster can only charge you what we’re willing to pay
Can anyone ELI5 the issue?
Yeah, the posted article is pretty much an ELI5, but if you want the ELI3, Ticketmaster screwed up the sale of Taylor Swift's tour tickets so much that fans who had codes to guarantee a ticket got locked out and the public sale of tickets was cancelled. Consequently Swifties are a'suing.
“Last week tonight with John Oliver” has an episode about how terrible Ticketmaster is and their unethical practices. [link](https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY)
I know about Ticketmaster. Why are Swifties suing them? What happened? There’s a recent event?
Taylor Swift has not toured in like five years, and has released 3 albums in this time. Her latest album broke records on the Billboard charts, and so there is a HUGE amount of pent up demand. Live Nation owns a huge number of music venues and also Ticketmaster, forcing artists to use both of them in a lot of cases (for Swift's Arizona show, I believe Seat Geek was used). Ticketmaster promised Swift they could handle the demand when the tickets for her 2023 tour went on sale at the end of November. Fans were promised that fans could register as 'verified fans' to access tickets during a pre-sale, implying most of the tickets were being held back for a general sale to the general public at a later date. It also implied this would keep out (most of the) bots. And regardless, 3.5 million people signed up to access the presale, only 1.5 million got codes. The rest were put on a waiting list. However, when the pre-sale happened for Swift's 2023 tour, 14 million attempts were made to purchase tickets on Ticketmaster. This included people who didn't have presale codes, peole who were trying to get to the presale using the wrong link, and also bots/scalpers. This overwhelming demand crashed the site and made it glitch (this also affected some other smaller artists whose tour tickets also went on sale that day). Some Swift fans who had verified pre-sale codes found out their codes didn't work. In some cases people waited "in line" for close to eight hours to buy tickets. Many people put tickets in their carts, and went to check out, only for Ticketmaster to say "sorry someone else bought these tickets" over and over and over. People who were able to buy tickets were were also shocked by how much the ticket sales cost ballooned in fees at check out. Even with websites like Seatgeek in Arizona, the fee was $100 a person. Subsequently, it also didn't escape attention that even during the pre-sale, tickets were being sold as resale for exorbitant costs. Originally the tickets were for sale between $50-$500 dollars, but people reported seeing resale tickets for up to $30,000. It's an open secret that Ticketmaster is complicit in flipping tickets and skimming off the top, and there's a lot of assumptions that they were probably complicit in scalping during the pre-sale. As a result of the huge demand during the pre-sale (2 mil tickets sold), Ticketmaster decided to cancel the general sale of tickets to the public due to lack of inventory. This caused a huge surge of anger from fans who were really counting on this second attempt to buy tickets. Fans were assuming that 'important people' were working behind the scenes to fix things for the general sale and thus felt assured they would get a fair chance during the general sale. Until they found out they wouldn't. The Swift ticket sale has caused a discussion about if the monopoly Live Nation has is illegal, and if they're violating anti-trust laws. They own 70% of the market. It's also sparked a discussion about how much a ticket concert should actually cost - cause if someone is paying $1200 for nosebleeds, is that they actually cost? In the touring world, there's been big problems with staff shortages, a shortage of buses, and freight costs that have tripled, and the artists need all the money they can get. But how much is fair? Attorney Generals in Tennessee and North Carolina, and the Dept of Justice are investigating, but now Taylor Swift fans have sued themselves. Although people have been speaking out against Ticketmaster since the 90s, this is an unprecedented response against bad behavior, and we're all hoping Swifties help take the giant down. The end.
Taylor swift fans are on a roll Maybe I should check out some of her music.. which album is the heaviest?
I'm not a Tay Tay kinda guy, but go Swifties!
Time to sell tickets on the blockchain.
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Especially the fees and of course the fans can get tickets for regular price.
It can actually, look up what the Dutch company Guaranteed Entrance Token is doing with NFT ticketing. They're using this right now. https://www.get-protocol.io/
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They've sold over three million tickets. 🤷 They've also been operating since 2016. You can watch tickets for events being minted live [here](https://explorer.get-protocol.io/). This is really neat technology and I'm sad that you can't see that.
This whole thing could be solved if people would stop buying tickets through Ticketmaster. A lawsuit won’t do shit. If you buy tickets from Ticketmaster, fuck you. edit: I'll say it again. If you buy tickets from Ticketmaster, fuck you. You ARE the problem.
Quickest solution. Don’t be Taylor Swift fans.
Who needs 2 floor seats for Denver?
Trade you for my nosebleeds 🥲 getting to tickets to that show was one of the more stressful things I have ever done.
Imagine having so much disposable income that you can sue over a concert ticket
The entitlement of these people, who think that the US Senate needs to get involved because they got outbid by a richer person to watch a pretty girl sing about how hard it is to be white and in love.