The FTC’s Taylor Swift Tickets Lawsuit Ignores the Real Culprit
Ticketmaster’s near-monopoly has been a cause for concern within the industry for years.
There’s probably a Taylor Swift lyric that could soundtrack this attempt.
Photographer: Chandan Khanna/AFPHere’s a piece of free advice: don’t get a Gen-Xer talking about how hard we used to have to work to get concert tickets. Many in the cohort likely have stories of camping out overnight at a stadium box office, calling the order line at the stroke of 8 a.m. until we finally got through, or bribing a friend who worked at the customer service counter of the local grocery store that served as a ticket outlet. It took planning and teamwork. It’s not like today, where you can just easily do it at the click of a button on your phone, we’ll tell anyone who listens.
Except for many shows, it’s not quite so simple. Those who stopped going to high-profile concerts in the early days of online ordering may not realize what an absolute nightmare the process has become. It was most readily evident in the disastrous on-sale launch for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which crashed the servers of Ticketmaster. The company is responsible for ticketing and distribution for Swift’s shows (and that of every act, big and small).