Ticketmaster Scandals

Poppy Van Weerdenburg
Feb 10, 2023
2 min read

Since the restrictions put in place by covid-19 have been lifted, many big music artists have planned world tours. With artists like Taylor Swift, Sza, Bad Bunny, and many more, millions of fans have been scrambling to get tickets to see these beloved artists live.

Buying tour tickets can be a risky thing, with resellers, sketchy sales, and deceptive labeling all factoring into the stress of securing those seats. Recently, many fans have put their trust into the company Ticketmaster, since it seemed to be the most secure way to get tickets. But as of mid november, 2022, Ticketmaster is under fire for sketchy business tactics that have been shoved into the spotlight after the scandal that happened during the presale of Tickets for Taylor Swift’s, The Eras Tour.

Many fans had their hearts set on getting tickets to see one of the biggest modern artists, but they were let down by Ticketmaster. On November 15th 2022, the verified fan presale started. To qualify for the sale, you had to be sent a code through email. This was to allow fans to have a better chance of getting tickets. The email was sent out to 1.5 million fans, but things quickly descended into chaos. Many fans reported getting kicked out of the line once they had bought their tickets, sight crashes, and many many more issues that stopped many people from having a fair chance at getting tickets. Ticketmaster then canceled the general sale that was set for Nov. 17th 2022, just two days later. Fans were left heartbroken and furious, which got Ticketmaster into some deep trouble.

This left not only Swift’s fans angry, but many others too. This was thought to be the last line, and something would be sorted out soon, but not even a month later the company was under fire again for selling an insane amount of ‘Fake tickets’ to fans hoping to go to see another insanely popular artist, Bad Bunny, in Mexico City. Many fans bought ‘ligitement’ tickets but ended up being denied entry to the concert. Upwards of 1,600 fans were sold these fake tickets, which they had spent their hard earned money on. Mexico’s president even spoke out about it, saying the whole situation left him emotional and demanded that ticketmaster refund the fans.

Since these situations have happened, Ticketmaster has been sent to the senate for a hearing on January 24th, 2023. About 2 dozen hardcore Taylor Swift fans sued Ticketmaster, “like some kinda congressman.” The biggest charge was an antitrust lawsuit. The antitrust laws in America are made so big businesses cannot scam customers and use illegal methods in their tactics, and also so monopolies are not formed. The merging of Live Nation and Ticketmaster was also brought up, with speakers raising the fear that this may make Ticketmaster even more dominant in the industry. The case lasted three hours, with many senators quoting Taylor Swift lyrics from her song, Anti-Hero, You Belong with Me, All too Well, and many more. Even though the case didn’t close with a definite answer, it seems Ticketmasters scams won’t carry on much longer, as hopefully they have finally learned their lesson.