Congress plans to hold a hearing on Ticketmaster, prompted by problems with Taylor Swift ticket sales this week and long-running issues like hidden fees, a key senator has said. Here’s what you need to know.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate antitrust panel, did not give a date for the hearing but said it would be this year. Ticketmaster has been sharply criticized for mishandling ticket sales for Swift’s 2023 tour, her first in five years.
Congress Takes Action Following Taylor Swift’s Ticketmaster Debacle
In the presale round on Tuesday, many fans faced site outages and long wait times as over two million tickets were sold. Ticketmaster then cancelled the general sale of tickets for the US leg of Swift’s Eras Tour, citing “insufficient ticket inventory” to meet “extraordinarily high demands.”
General ticket sales were planned to open on Friday morning following the verified fan presale, but the company then canceled the public sale altogether. On Thursday, Ticketmaster tweeted: “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift The Eras Tour has been canceled.”
The ticket company had previously asked fans on Twitter to be patient as “millions” tried to buy tickets in the presale, causing “historically unprecedented demand.” The news came after the singer triumphed at the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs) over the weekend, winning four of the top gongs, including two for All Too Well.
Across her six nominations, she took home Best Video and Best Longform Video award for the song, as well as Best Artist and Best Pop at the ceremony in Dusseldorf, Germany. The American leg of her tour will kick off on March 18th in Glendale, Arizona, with the singer joined by a number of popular artists during the tour, including the bands Paramore and Haim, as well as solo artists Phoebe Bridgers and Gracie Abrams.
Swift’s latest album, Midnights, has claimed the biggest first week of album sales since Adele’s 30 was released last November and took the title of the most-streamed album of the year in its opening week with 72.5 million streams across the seven days.
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