Senate to hold Ticketmaster hearing following antitrust concerns

Ticketmaster hearing overview:

• Who: The U.S. Senate will reportedly conduct a hearing over Ticketmaster antitrust concerns.
• Why: The ticket seller’s dominant market position may result in anticompetitive behavior that harms artists and consumers.
• Where: The Ticketmaster hearing will be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights.

The U.S. Senate will reportedly hold a hearing over antitrust concerns involving Ticketmaster, although the hearing date has not yet been scheduled, Law360 reported.

In a Nov. 22 announcement, senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) said the Senate Judiciary Committee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights would conduct the Ticketmaster hearing. Klobuchar chairs the subcommittee, and Lee is a ranking member.

The announcement came shortly after a Taylor Swift ticket fiasco that led to Ticketmaster canceling the sale of the singer’s tour tickets to the public.

In Tuesday’s statement, Klobuchar said Ticketmaster’s antitrust issues were “made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets.”

“The high fees, site disruptions, and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve,” Klobuchar said.

The senator noted the Ticketmaster hearing would investigate how consolidation in the live entertainment ticketing industry hurts both the artists and customers.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating potential antitrust violations by Live Nation, which was permitted to merge with Ticketmaster in 2010.

Last week, Klobuchar and other Democratic senators urged the U.S. Department of Justice to consider undoing the merger due to the companies’ anticompetitive behavior.

Ticketmaster issues apology for Taylor Swift ticket sales issues

Ticketmaster previously apologized for the issues with the Taylor Swift concert ticket sales, blaming unprecedented volume of requests.

“Historically, we’ve been able to manage huge volume coming into the site to shop for tickets, so those with verified fan codes have a smooth shopping process,” Ticketmaster said in a statement.

“However, this time the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests — four times our previous peak.”

Ticketmaster and Live Nation were hit with a class action lawsuit earlier this year over allegations that they are able to charge customers inflated service fees because of their dominant position in the ticketing industry. 

Did you try to buy Taylor Swift concert tickets from Ticketmaster? Tell us what you think about the Senate’s potential TIcketmaster hearing in the comments!

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