OPINION

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By Mallory Brabrand

When you think monopoly, you’re probably thinking of the board game, great for establishing yourself as the superior sibling. Or maybe you’re even thinking of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, if you’ve taken Upper School history teacher Suzanne Lewis’s AP US History course. But right now, when I think monopoly, I think of the absolute travesty known as the “Taylor Swift ticket fiasco” of 2022.

An old Ticketmaster paper ticket, from before all Ticketmaster tickets were virtual. Photo credit: Flickr user Jim Ellwanger.

As ticket purchasers left early morning record store lines for virtual queues on their laptops at home, Ticketmaster continued to grow at increasingly concerning rates. Founded in 1976, Ticketmaster spent the 1980s and 90s becoming one of the most powerful companies to sell tickets to major concerts and sporting events. Ticketmaster merged with the company Live Nation in 2010 “after agreeing with U.S. antitrust officials to divest some assets,” to avoid becoming a monopoly. Though the agreement was reached with the Department of Justice, many opposed the merger, saying it went against anti-trust legislation, despite the restrictions put on Ticketmaster and Live Nation, now known together as Live Nation Entertainment. David A. Balto, an “antitrust practitioner,” argued back in 2009 to a US Senate subcommittee on antitrust issues that this merger would “give the merged firm the incentive and ability to raise rivals’ costs and foreclose competition in many segments of the concert promotion and ticket marketplace.” He argued that the merger would create a ticket-selling monopoly monster, and that “vertical integration in the hands of Ticketmaster can be a tool to stifle competition and deceive consumers.” Balto was right, as consumers truly have been the victims of this monopoly, most recently this November with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. 

Over the years, many have accused Live Nation of strongly encouraging concert venues to sell tickets exclusively through Ticketmaster, contrary to many of the antitrust rules they are supposed to follow. In 2019, “The DOJ investigation found that Live Nation had repeatedly violated the 10-year consent decree signed after the merger, in which the company agreed to refrain from monopolistic practices such as withholding valuable shows from venues in order to force them to contract Ticketmaster for ticketing services.” The original merger agreement was meant to last through 2020, but following investigations into the business practices of Live Nation Entertainment, amendments and new rules were added to the agreement, which was then extended through 2025. In addition to millions of dollars in fines, this investigation of Ticketmaster and Live Nation led the government to appoint an “independent monitor… to investigate and report on Live Nation’s activities.”

Swift performing on her Red tour in 2013. Photo credit: Wikimedia user Jana Zills.

As an avid Taylor Swift fan (click here to read my review of Midnights), I couldn’t wait for 10:00 a.m. on November 15. The night before the tickets went live, I’d received my Verified Fan presale code, and my mom, Leigh Archer, was ready to log in and get us tickets. Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan presale program is supposed to eliminate bots and leave more tickets for fans who consistently show support of the artist. When it was finally time, I awaited any text from my mom alerting me to shifts in her progress in the virtual line and hopefully a text saying she got tickets. However, that second text never came. My mom spent a collective six hours that Tuesday waiting in the virtual line just to have the opportunity to purchase tickets. When she finally reached the front of the queue, the presale was sold out. The thousands of tickets were gone, and nothing made sense. All day, the website had been glitching and freezing and cutting out due to the demand for tickets. But this was just the presale. Hadn’t Ticketmaster sent out a number of presale codes they could manage? Why was this all happening? 

Initially, the second presale, hosted by Capital One, was scheduled to take place Tuesday afternoon, but following the constant on-stream of technical difficulties, Ticketmaster postponed it to the next day. When my mom got in, Ticketmaster crushed my Taylor-Swift-loving soul once again, kicking her out of the site when she reached the front and blocking her from getting back in, saying she had to wait until Friday’s general sale, which never ended up happening. 

One theory as to why Ticketmaster would release so many presale codes stems from Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing option. According to Yahoo Finance, dynamic pricing works as follows: “Depending on the artist, venue or city, if demand is high, then ticket prices can rise aggressively. This allows Ticketmaster to gauge the marketplace as it gouges consumers.” Though I am usually quick to defend Swift, I am disappointed that she chose not to opt out of dynamic pricing for her ticket sales. I feel that as someone with as many fans as she has, Swift shouldn’t have let her capitalistic ventures outweigh the value of her true fans, who just want to support her. I believe that Ticketmaster purposely released more presale codes than tickets to drive up the demand for tickets and, in turn, the prices.

The sheer number of users logging onto Ticketmaster that first presale morning was astronomical. Vox reports, “According to Ticketmaster, there were approximately 14 million users on the site at once during the presale push, and the company sold 2.4 million presale tickets.” However, millions of fans never even got the chance to try to get tickets, though their efforts would have been fruitless. That Thursday, Ticketmaster released a statement canceling Friday’s general sale, blaming the cancellation on “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” So, even if you’ve been a Swiftie for a decade, attended all of her previous tours, and spent thousands on merch every year, if you didn’t receive a presale code and don’t have a preexisting Capital One card, you never even had a chance. 

After the failure of the Eras Tour Presale, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted, “daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with Live Nation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.” Thousands are still voicing their frustration with the company as news breaks of a new antitrust investigation. Meanwhile, tickets are being resold for thousands of dollars on websites such as StubHub.

I believe that Ticketmaster should no longer have such exclusive access to ticket selling. To truly ensure that tickets get into the hands of fans, Ticketmaster needs competition to stabilize the market. In my opinion, the government should continue to step in and enforce their anti-trust regulations against Ticketmaster. I never ended up getting seats to see Swift’s show, and I know that there are millions just like me, equally fed up with the situation. Though Swift released a statement, she merely said,  “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone,” not really apologizing for the grief millions of her fans went through. She added “To those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to get together and sing these songs.” This response from Swift was truly disheartening to read as a fan. Although I’m sure there are legalities around what she can and cannot release in a statement to the public right now, I do wish she would have acknowledged her own wrongdoings in this situation, such as opting in to dynamic pricing.

Featured image: Swift’s 1989 stadium tour in 2015. Photo credit: Wikimedia user GabboT.