The lack of competition in the ticketing market will be the subject of a Senate committee hearing.
Taylor Swift is the artist of the decade and will perform at the Nashville Songwriter Awards.
The competition problem in ticketing markets was made obvious by the failure of the Ticketmaster website.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights will hold a hearing on how consolidation harms customers and artists.
The date for the hearing has not been set.
More than 2 million people. Swift said last week that the number of fans who bought tickets for her tour would be in the tens of thousands. Pre-sale events were held by the company. When the company, which is a subset of Live Nation Entertainment, said it was canceling the public sale, it said it was doing so because of "extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand"
Fans waited hours for tickets during the pre-sale. Swift didn't name either company by name, but her team asked the groups several times if they could handle this kind of demand and were assured they could. One of the first politicians to speak out against Live Nation was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called the company a "Monopoly." Before she announced the congressional hearing, she wrote a letter to Ticketmaster raising antitrust concerns. According to the New York Times, the Department of Justice has been investigating Live Nation for months about its practices and whether it has a monopoly over live entertainment.
Live Nation Chair Greg Maffei said last week that Live Nation didn't promote "Eras." Live Nation doesn't engage in behaviors that could justify antitrust litigation, let alone orders that would require it to alter fundamental business practices. There is a large gap between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system, according to the company. The issues with the "Eras" sale were caused by high traffic.
Swift has released four new albums in the last year, which is why the demand for the shows is so high.
Live Nation is under investigation by the justice department.
Taylor Swift said in her first statement that she wouldn't make excuses for anyone.
The public sale for Taylor Swift's tour was canceled.
14 million people tried to buy Taylor Swift tickets.
The demand for Taylor Swift tickets is historically unprecedented.
The future of antitrust legislation is threatened by the new congress.
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