Taylor Swift Ticketmaster debacle goes before the Senate

The Ticketmaster Taylor Swift ticket disaster came before the U.S. Senate Tuesday, where lawmakers including Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar used the “Anti-Hero” singer’s own words for her opening number.

“To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition,” Klobuchar said at the start of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the computer crash debacle in November that kept Swift’s fans from buying tickets for her concert tour.

“You can’t have too much consolidation — something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well,” Klobuchar said.

The reference was to Swift’s 2012 hit “All Too Well,” which she remade in 2021 and famously performed for 10 minutes on “Saturday Night Live” in November.

“All Too Well” was one of many tunes the 33-year-old pop superstar’s fans hoped to hear her perform during her “The Eras Tour” — if technical issues hadn’t kept them from buying tickets.

In a rare showing of bipartisan solidarity, senators from both sides of the aisle wondered Tuesday if Ticketmaster’s dominance in the ticket-selling business is so problematic that it needs to be broken off from its behemoth owner, Live Nation.

Live Nation CEO Joe Berchtold was on the hot seat when the grilling got underway.

“I’m not against big, per se,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told him. “I’m against dumb.”

Kennedy said whoever handled ticket sales for Swift’s tour — where scores of preregistered fans spent hours in the queue but often came away empty-handed — should lose their job.

Berchtold conceded, among other issues, that ticket sales should have been staggered. He also blamed an inordinate amount of bot activity for complicating the process.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) pushed back, arguing a company dealing in massive online ticket sales should be prepared for such issues.

Klobuchar and Kennedy also took issue with the fees Ticketmaster charges for seats. Live Nation’s boss said concert venues and artists largely dictate pricing, but other witnesses Tuesday questioned that claim. Berchtold said pricing at Live Nation-owned venues is competitive with other ticket merchants.

“Clearly there isn’t transparency when no one knows who sets the fees,” Klobuchar said.

She contended consumers are paying service fees that are on average 27% of the base ticket price. Klobuchar placed most of that blame on Ticketmaster, which sells 70% of tickets for major U.S. venues, according to a class action suit filed last year.

Klobuchar, a 62-year-old Yale University graduate, reflected on her younger days, when she saw bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and The Cars.

She expressed worry that young people now might not be able to afford to see their favorite acts live, and accused Live Nation’s practices of being the “definition of monopoly.”

Kennedy expressed a similar view. “Not every kid can afford $500 to go see Taylor Swift,” Kennedy said.

But senators offered different views about what to do about the problem. Kennedy suggested that Congress pass a law making tickets nontransferable, thus preventing resales. But another GOP senator, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said Kennedy’s idea would interfere with people’s right to resell tickets.

Swift said after November’s ticket mess she found it painful to “watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”

With News Wire Services