After many concert fans struggled with the ticket sale site Ticketmaster, some are taking their discrepancies to the next level, filing a class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation.
According to NPR reporter Rachel Treisman, “[The lawsuit] alleges that the ticketing platform has a monopoly on primary and secondary markets and accuses it of engaging in fraudulent practices and various antitrust violations, including price discrimination and price fixing.”
The lawsuit focuses primarily on the sale of Taylor Swift tickets for her upcoming Eras Tour, which comes to the city of Philadelphia on May 12-13.
Local fans experienced these antitrust violations, most specifically price fixing, during the sale of tickets for Swift’s tour. According to junior Olivia Nogami, “Prices were rising. This was supposed to be an affordable concert, but it was not.”
Ticketmaster operates on a Verified Fan system, meaning fans register in advance for presale codes in order to get tickets to events, and have an opportunity to gain access to presale tickets.
“I ended up getting a presale code which I was really grateful for,” junior Megan Wilkinson said.
However, many concertgoers had issues with obtaining a code or having the code work at all. “My code [didn’t] work …it’s Ticketmaster’s fault,” Nogami said.
According to Nogami, some fans speculate that their presale codes were stolen by robots programmed to buy tickets off the Ticketmaster Verified Fan presale site, which Live Nation claims is supposed to prevent ticket sales to bots. Ticketmaster released a statement following the ticket sale debacle. According to the statement, “By requiring registrations, Verified Fan is designed to help manage high-demand shows – identifying real humans and weeding out bots. Keeping bots out of queues and avoiding overcrowding helps to make wait times shorter and on sales smoother.”
For many, however, this was not the reality while they were trying to purchase tickets. “My whole family was trying to get tickets,” sophomore Elise Holly said. “We were all getting really frustrated.”
In Ticketmaster’s statement, they estimate that approximately 15% of fans attempting to get tickets experienced issues with the site crashing and presale code efficacy. “I know a lot of people didn’t get tickets,” Holly said. “I think everyone who likes [Swift’s] music should be able to go.”
Fans are aware of the lawsuit, but many young fans do not know how to begin to take those matters into their own hands.