New York
CNN Business
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Taylor Swift Friday spoke about the ticket debacle this week, with many fans unable to purchase tickets for his upcoming tour. Ticketmaster.
“It goes without saying that I am very protective of my fans,” Swift wrote Instagram On Friday. “It’s very difficult for me to trust an outside agency with these relationships and loyalties, and it pains me to see mistakes happen without any help.”
Swift blamed Ticketmaster for the snafus, noting that there are “so many reasons why people struggle so much” to get tickets.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we’ve asked them multiple times and we’ve assured them they can handle this kind of request,” the singer wrote. “It’s really amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really hurts me to feel like most of them went through multiple bear attacks to get them.”
Swift added, “I’m going to try to figure out how we can move this situation forward.”
Sales for the singer’s New Eras tour began on Tuesday, but high demand has overwhelmed the ticketing platform, Annoying Fans who can’t get tickets. Customers complained that Ticketmaster was not loaded, saying the platform did not allow them to access tickets despite having a pre-sale code for verified fans.
On Thursday, Ticketmaster announced that sales to the general public were scheduled to begin on Friday Cancelled Due to “abnormally high demand on ticket systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand”.
“For those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is I hope we get more opportunities to get together and sing these songs,” Swift added.
The problems for Ticketmaster began on Tuesday, when the site launched sales for “verified fans” — a move aimed at weeding out bots offering presale codes to individuals.
The “verified fan” platform was created in 2017 to help Ticketmaster handle high-demand situations, but with more than 3.5 million people pre-registering as Swift “verified fans,” the system has become overwhelmed. According to Ticketmaster, this is the largest record in the company’s history.
“Historically, working with ‘verified fan’ call codes has allowed us to manage the volume of people coming to the site to shop for tickets,” the company wrote in a blog post Thursday. “However, this time the number of bot attacks and fans without call codes have generated unprecedented traffic to our site.”
“It usually takes us an hour to sell through a stadium show,” Ticketmaster noted, but the site slowed some sales and delayed others to “confirm arrangements.” It stopped everything.
The site appeared to have avoided major problems when it began pre-sales for Capital One credit card holders on Wednesday. But the company’s inability to cope with demand for Swift travel and lack of tickets to meet further demand cut short Friday’s planned sale to the public.
Fans blamed Ticketmaster, and others, including members of Congress, sharply criticized the company’s control of the live music industry.
“Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically drive companies to innovate and improve their services,” Senator Amy Klobuchar said. wrote In an open letter to its CEO on Wednesday. “This could lead to the types of dramatic service failures we’ve seen this week, where consumers pay the price.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal echoed Klobuchar’s concerns, tweeting, “This tour is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger is harming consumers by creating a monopoly.”
“I have long urged the DOJ to investigate the state of competition in the ticketing industry,” he said said. “Consumers are better than this Anti-hero behavior.”
The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, to see if it has a monopoly on the market for concerts, including ticketing, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. First the New York Times reported The hearing is Friday.
The Justice Department has contacted music venues and other ticket market participants in recent months to ask about Live Nation’s practices and industry dynamics, the Times added.
The Justice Department and Live Nation did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
The backlash also highlights the magnitude of Swift’s popularity
The pop star has had countless hits in her career, built a very loyal fan base — known as “Swifties” — and recently became the first artist to hold all of the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously. His latest album, “Midnights,” came out last month.
His Eras Tour — which kicks off March 17 in Glendale, Arizona and ends August 9 in Los Angeles — hits 52 venues across the United States.
Ticketmaster further noted on Thursday Two million tickets Tuesday sold out for Swift’s upcoming tour — a record for an artist in one day. The company also said demand for tickets to the Eras Tour is twice that of the 2022 Top Five tour and the Super Bowl. joined.
“Based on the amount of traffic to our site, Taylor should be able to play 900 stadium shows (almost 20 times the number of shows she does),” Ticketmaster wrote Thursday. “A stadium show every night for the next 2.5 years.”
Tickets for Swift’s upcoming tour have resulted in astronomical prices on ticket resale sites, with some tickets Listed for tens of thousands of dollars.
Since her debut album in 2006, Swift has established herself as a cultural icon and has been influential in moving the needle on issues in the industry. She has Taken on music streaming services Like Spotify
(spot) And Apple Music artists pay and have Currently re-recording his songs to reclaim the rights of his masters.
In many respects, the music industry is going the same way as Swift.
Serona Elton, professor of music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, further explained Swift’s popularity by noting her success in both music sales and touring. That said, most music is now consumed through streaming, which is extremely popular among the younger generation.
“The demographic group that drives a large percentage of music consumption see themselves in her and relate closely to what she sings,” he said.
– CNN’s Evan Perez and Tierney Sneed contributed to this report
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