Ticketmaster cancels general sale for Taylor Swift, lawmakers target ticketing giant

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“Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” the ticketing giant tweeted.

On Tuesday, fans were met with a less than smooth-running presale process, which left many without tickets and unhappy with the process. Ticketmaster attempted to explain the glitches by claiming that demand was unprecedented. However, the company was able to forecast demand, given that they issued the presale codes.

After the fiasco that left many fans distraught, Liberty Media CEO and Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei told CNBC, “I apologize to all our fans. We are working hard on this.”

“Building capacity for peak demand is something we attempt to do, but this exceeded every expectation,” he added on Thursday.

He further blamed problems on “massive demand,” adding that they “could’ve filled 900 stadiums” with the number of fans seeking tickets Tuesday.

Maffei also tried to blame Swift, noting she hasn’t toured in years, which increased demand.

As fans expressed their frustration on social media during the various botched presales, Democratic lawmakers took the opportunity to shine a light on the flaws in current antitrust laws and call out Ticketmaster’s anti-hero behavior.

“Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Tuesday. Later in the week, she promoted an increasingly popular letter-writing campaign to “Tell the Department of Justice to Investigate Ticketmaster.” The campaign has already sent over 25,000 letters to the DOJ.

“What is going on with Ticketmaster is an example of why we need strong antitrust enforcement! Monopolies wreak havoc on consumers and our economy. When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) wrote in agreement.

“Since Ticketmaster merged with LiveNation, consumers have had to pay the price. Ticketmaster’s power insulates it from the competitive pressures that push companies to innovate and improve. Americans deserve better,” she said in a later tweet.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) chimed in, saying, “Taylor Swift’s tour sale is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger harms consumers by creating a near-monopoly. I’ve long urged DOJ to investigate the state of competition in the ticketing industry. Consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior.”

“Ticketmaster — I knew you were trouble way back in 2009 when I asked questions about your ticketing practices as AG. Long story short, your anti-competitive behavior has been no love story for Taylor Swift concertgoers,” he said in another post.

The controversy prompted Klobuchar and Blumenthal to officially call on the DOJ to “Investigate the state of competition in the market for live entertainment, including potential violations of Ticketmaster-Live Nation’s updated consent decree.”

“We write to urge the Department to investigate the state of competition in the live entertainment and ticketing industry, including any potential anticompetitive and anti-consumer actions by Live Nation, and to take action, as appropriate, to enforce the antitrust laws and restore competition to these important markets,” the senators wrote to DOJ Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter.

“We are deeply concerned that the Department’s past enforcement and negotiated remedies in this industry have failed to adequately foster and protect competition in live entertainment and ticketing markets,” they emphasized.

Martin Meissner/AP

Several other federal lawmakers weighed in, similarly calling out the ticket-selling company. Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) called the entity an “unchecked monopoly,” while Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) said the site has “crushed competition in our markets.”

The DOJ declined to comment when reached by the Washington Examiner.

However, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has expressed concern over Ticketmaster’s activity, according to a Tuesday tweet.

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“Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is concerned about consumer complaints related to @Ticketmaster’s pre-sale of @taylorswift13 concert tickets. He and his Consumer Protection team will use every available tool to ensure that no consumer protection laws were violated,” his office wrote.

At a Wednesday press conference, he announced the launch of an antitrust investigation into the site.