Tickets for Taylor Swift’s next US concert tour haven’t even gone on sale yet – but already many fans hoping to see her live have been disappointed.
Mother Nancy Abulmagd spent hours in a virtual queue behind thousands of other people trying to snag seats for her 11-year-old daughter and her friends, only to have the website crash repeatedly and ultimately turn her away empty-handed.
And Nancy was one of the lucky ones – she’d won a lottery that allowed “verified fans” to enter a presale four days before the purchase, which was open to all.
“I got so close three or four times that the website broke. It was excruciating,” says the 41-year-old, who lives in New Jersey. “The experience was really draining. It messed with your emotions and sucked up your whole day.”
Ticketmaster, the company that sells the tickets, said the problems stemmed from a “historically unprecedented demand” for the singer, who first appeared on the scene in 2006 and has delivered a steady stream of hits that have crossed fame and romantic entanglements explore.
Their latest album “Midnights” has conquered the charts worldwide.
Millions of Swifties, as their fans are known, competed in presale for tickets to their 52-city U.S. tour, and hundreds of thousands secured seats, Ticketmaster said.
The company says the pre-sale system is designed to help stop ticket dealers — known in the US as scalpers — and bots from grabbing seats.
But the disruptions in the process have reignited anger at the company, which has long faced complaints that it is abusing its power over the industry.
In an episode earlier this year, comedian John Oliver described it as “one of the most hated companies in the world” – blaming it for the high prices, exorbitant fees and tight availability faced by those hoping to get gigs and to attend other events.
“They’re kind of at their mercy,” Nancy said, adding that the company could have handled the sale better given the demand for Taylor Swift tickets.
Pearl Jam raised concerns about Ticketmaster’s role as the largest ticket seller as early as the 1990s.
Since then, the power of the company has grown steadily. In 2010 it bought Live Nation, which operates many of the country’s venues and has an artist management business.
US Democratic lawmakers, who have called for the merger to be reversed, intervened again amid the chaos of the Taylor Swift presale.
“Ticketmaster’s excessive wait times and fees are totally unacceptable, as today’s @taylorswift13 tickets demonstrate, and are a symptom of a larger problem,” wrote Congressman David Cicilline, who chairs the House Competition and Antitrust Committee. “It’s no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unexamined monopoly.”
“A daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved and they need to be governed [sic] in,” wrote leftist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Break them open.”
The Justice Department on Wednesday did not respond to a request for comment on the Taylor Swift affair.
Ticketmaster is already subject to government oversight, oversight that was imposed when the LiveNation purchase was approved.
Oversight was expanded a few years ago after regulators found the company had breached the terms of the agreement.
And last month US President Joe Biden – who has expressed concern that monopolies are becoming more prevalent in the economy – said his administration would review concert ticket fees.
Krista Brown, senior policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project, is part of a coalition of artists and others who launched a campaign last month calling on the government to break up Ticketmaster.
She said she’s confident the outrage from Taylor Swift’s massive fan base will increase pressure on the government to act.
“If there were healthy competition in this area, [these problems] just wouldn’t be there and customers or fans would have other services to turn to,” she said.
But whether that’s any consolation to fans hoping to catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift in concert is another matter.
Before the general public can try again, the company is opening purchases to people carrying credit cards from Taylor Swift tour sponsor Capital One.
Ticketmaster did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC asking how many tickets were expected to be available.
Swift, who has added 25 shows to her tour in response to popular demand and sometimes feuds with corporate giants, has remained quiet on the matter so far.
Nancy said she plans to try again as part of the public on Friday. But she doesn’t hold out much hope.
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