Ticketmaster faces mounting scrutiny after Taylor Swift ticket chaos
Tennessee's attorney general said he is launching an investigation into Ticketmaster after complaints over the website crashing as Taylor Swift fans raced to buy tickets for the singer's upcoming "Eras" tour.
Ticketmaster is facing mounting scrutiny, including from lawmakers and state authorities, over its sale practices after outcry from Taylor Swift fans over website outages and long waits to buy tickets for the singer’s upcoming “Eras” tour.
In a letter addressed to Michael Rapino, the president and CEO of Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., expressed, “serious concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its harmful impact on consumers.”
“Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services,” said Klobuchar, who is chair of a Senate subcommittee on antitrust issues. “That can result in the types of dramatic service failures we saw this week, where consumers are the ones that pay the price.”
In the letter, the lawmaker asked Rapino to answer a string of questions, including how much the company has spent to upgrade technology to handle surges in demand and what percentage of high-profile tour tickets get reserved for presales. Ticketmaster and Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Tennessee's attorney general has separately said he is launching an investigation into Ticketmaster after his office was flooded with complaints over the ticket company's website crashing Tuesday as Swift fans, known as "Swifties" raced to buy tickets for the "Eras" tour.
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