Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Reveals Ticketmaster Has Too Much Power

The announcement of Taylor Swift’s new Eras Tour broke the internet. 

For the first time since the pandemic, the acclaimed singer announced she was going on tour to promote her latest musical project across the United States. 

The pre-sale of tickets was handled by the nation’s leading ticketing company: Ticketmaster. While there was an expected high volume of visitors to the site, the company’s management of the tour’s pre-sales was a complete and total failure. 

While the issues were innumerable, there were a few major ones. 

To start, the Ticketmaster website crashed because it wasn’t equipped to handle the high demand. Ironically, the company itself led to this demand as it had previously sent a predetermined number of pre-sale codes.

Boosts meant to prioritize certain fans were also not applied during the process, frustrating many fans because tickets sold out in minutes. 

But the strangest issue was with ticket sales, because an incorrect separation of ticket quantities led to the cancellation of general tickets due to insufficient inventory after pre-sales were completed. 

All of these issues are side effects of Ticketmaster’s lack of competition in the market. 

In 2010, Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation—a now-defunct event-promoting company. Through the act, Ticketmaster solidified its complete control over the venues and tickets sold for all major events. 

The move consolidated so much economic power that it had to be approved by the federal government. 

As an agreement with the federal government, Ticketmaster agreed not to place pressure on venues to use their platform to sell tickets and gain leverage to attract heavily sought-out artists. 

Even with the agreement, this is almost impossible to achieve due to the pressure already built into negotiations. 

Venues know they will be less favored to host events if they aren’t using Ticketmaster. This is the threat built into the conglomerate to monopolize the entire market. 

The lack of competition allows Ticketmaster to be careless about their website’s functioning, customer service and logistical organization.

Until we break up monopolies such as Ticketmaster, fans of artists such as Taylor Swift will have to continue relying on a platform with substandard services. 

Otherwise, fans won’t be able to ensure the competitive prices and services required to enjoy their beloved artists.