Suit against Ticketmaster, Live Nation is brought forth by Taylor Swift’s “Ticket Sale Disaster”
More than two dozen fans are suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation over the botched verified fan presale for Swift’s The Eras Tour, cancellation of the general ticket sale, and a host of other complaints they argue stems from having a monopoly on the primary and secondary markets.
Swifties have filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster because of problems they encountered when trying to get tickets for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.
According to a complaint filed on Friday, a presale open to “verified” fans who registered in advance through Ticketmaster devolved into a “ticket sale fiasco,” resulting in some people having to wait in a virtual line for up to eight hours and “millions” of them being unable to get seats.
In a lawsuit filed in L.A. County Superior Court, more than two dozen Swift supporters accused Ticketmaster and its parent firm Live Nation of contract breaches, willful misrepresentations, fraud, antitrust violations, and unfair competition.
The supporters claim that Ticketmaster willfully and purposefully misled ticket buyers by granting scalpers and bots access to the TayloraSwiftTix presale, which was scheduled for Nov. 15 and 16. The presale was intended to “level the playing field without racing against bots.”
Swifties flocked to acquire tickets, and Ticketmaster was aware that there weren’t enough available despite regulating who had access to the presale, the complaint claims. The business supplied a code that allowed “certified” vans early access to tickets after pre-approving them.
The complaint claims that up to six tickets to three venues may be purchased using codes that were issued to 1.4 million verified fans. “Ticketmaster did not have enough seats to meet the demand this number of codes would require,” states the complaint. “Ticketmaster intentionally provided codes when it could not satisfy ticket demand.” They also say that was compounded b the fact that an additional 14 million users were allowed into what was supposed to have been an exclusive purchase window. All of this also resulted in the cancellation of the general sale, which had been set for Nov. 18.
The bad blood between fans and the platform isn’t new, but they’re not left with much choice.
“Ticketmaster has made agreements with the stadiums in every location of the Taylor Swift tour, and these stadiums are the only venues able to hold large concerts,” states the complaint filed by attorney Dennis B. Hill. “Because no other venue can hold half as many people as the stadiums and venues working through Ticketmaster, Taylor Swift and other popular musicians have no choice but to work through Ticketmaster. And because artists like Taylor Swift have to go through Ticketmaster, their fans do as well.”
According to the fans, this has led to increased pricing in the presale, sale, and resale markets. Additionally, Ticketmaster has “strived and succeeded in reducing competition from both the Primary and Secondary markets” because it forces users who want to sell their tickets to do so through its platform.
Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy, which “raises the price of tickets as more tickets are selling,” is the subject of another lawsuit the fans are pursuing regarding price discrimination. According to the complaint, this leads to the sale of similar tickets at “radically different rates” and “arbitrarily punishes the people that were unable to get to the head of the queue.” Additionally, they claim that Ticketmaster permitted the resale of tickets during the presale “as if the tickets were at face value negotiated by Taylor Swift Management, when in fact they were double and triple the negotiated price.”
According to Swifties, there have been “millions of fans making multiple failed attempts at ticket checkpoints-out to finish the purchase because tickets had been removed from their basket without sufficient time to check out” in addition to issues with obstructed views, VIP packages, ADA-compliant seats, and not having enough time to read the purchase agreement.
A request for comment has not yet received a response from Live Nation or Ticketmaster.