Fair ticket pricing fight brings together unlikely trio: Lee, Klobuchar and Swift

It’s difficult to imagine an issue on which Utah’s senior U.S. senator, Mike Lee, as rockribbed a Republican as one can get, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, would find common ground. Chalk up another win for the healing power of Taylor Swift’s music. Earlier this year, Lee and Klobuchar were presiding over a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that was investigating the “anticompetitive conduct” of the concert ticket broker Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment.

The spur for the Senate’s interest was the fiasco last November, when Ticketmaster opened up pre-sales for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” North America tour. Some 3.5 million people registered for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program — which the company created with the stated aim of getting tickets to fans, not to bots or ticket resellers.

Of those 3.5 million people, 1.5 million received a special access code to buy tickets to Swift’s 16-city, 52-date tour. The other 2 million were put on a waiting list.

On Nov. 15, Ticketmaster reported selling 2 million tickets in a day. Fans dealt with system crashes and hours-long wait times to get their chance to buy tickets. Fans also noticed, and the BBC reported, that resale sites were selling tickets marked up to $10,000 or more.

Ticketmaster canceled the sale to the general public, after the presale demand overwhelmed their online ticketing system. Swift wrote, on her Instagram, that it was “excruciating” to watch her fans deal with the ticketing snafu, adding that “it’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”

And when the Swifties — as the singer’s legions of fans are called — aren’t happy, the protests are loud enough to get Congress’ attention. That’s why executives from Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster sat before the subcommittee where Klobuchar was chair and Lee was the ranking Republican.

The hearing produced headlines, and inspired some mockery, because some senators decided to work Swift lyrics into their comments — which was as awkward as you think it would be. Lee was a prime example, dismissing a proposal to limit consumers’ ability to resell tickets as “a nightmare dressed as a daydream,” which is how Swift describes her bad-girl persona in the song “Blank Space.”

After the hearing, Klobuchar and Lee issued a joint statement, saying that, “for too long, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have wielded monopoly power anticompetitively, harming fans and artists alike.” They urged the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s conduct. (The Justice Department was already running an antitrust investigation, The New York Times reported, looking into whether they have abused their power over the live music industry since the two companies merged in 2010.)

Others testifying at the hearing leveled serious charges against Live Nation. A rival ticket seller said Ticketmaster has extended its exclusive agreements with venues, shutting out the competition. Another promoter said Live Nation signs talent to exclusive deals, so the competition can’t produce concert tours — and added that 87% of Billboard’s Top 40 tours in 2022 and 85% of the teams in the NFL, NHL and NBA have exclusive ticketing contracts with Ticketmaster. And a public policy expert said Ticketmaster’s monopoly makes it easier to take advantage of consumers — such as informing them of fees, which can raise ticket prices 30% or more, only at the end of the buying process.

None of this criticism is new. Back in 1994, the grunge band Pearl Jam — at the height of its popularity — rebelled against Ticketmaster’s added fees, according to a TV report from Pearl Jam’s home town of Seattle. Pearl Jam tried to book their own tour, with tickets priced at $18 and fees capped at $1.80 per ticket. Venues, which get a portion of the fees Ticketmaster charges, turned down the band’s proposal, and Pearl Jam canceled the 1994 tour. Band members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament testified before Congress, but no significant action was taken against Ticketmaster then.

Venues aren’t the only players who get a piece of Ticketmaster’s fees. Sometimes the artists do, as Billboard reported in 2019, when the publication found that some bands — who get blocks of tickets for each tour stop — sometimes sold those tickets on the resale market.

Ticketmaster gets painted as the bad guy, and it’s a role they’ve largely chosen for themselves. As then-CEO Irving Azoff told Congress in 2009, the service charges Ticketmaster collects often go to credit card companies, venues, promoters and artists. “Ticketmaster was set up as a system where they took the heat for everybody,” Azoff said.

Taylor Swift’s tour tickets, CBS News reported, are fetching an average of $2,424 on the resale market, which is more than the average mortgage payment. And even though Swift’s tour is bypassing Utah, the problems exposed are happening anywhere Ticketmaster and Live Nation operate — and Live Nation controls two of the most prominent concert venues in Utah: Usana Amphitheatre in West Valley City (seating capacity 25,000) and The Depot in downtown Salt Lake City (capacity 1,200).

Efforts to rein in Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s monopoly control of the live music industry are happening. The Tribune reported in January that a group of Swift fans, including a paralegal in Utah, has formed a group, Vigilante Legal (referencing a recent Swift song with a swear word in the title), that filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission — arguing that the 2010 merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster should never have happened.

In Congress, two New Jersey Democrats, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. introduced legislation with the long title, “the ‘Better Oversight of Stub Sales and Strengthening Well Informed and Fair Transactions for Audiences of Concert Ticketing Act of 2023.’’ Since Congress creates such long names for the acronym they produce, this one is known as the ‘’BOSS and SWIFT ACT of 2023 ’ — referencing both Swift and Bruce Springsteen, aka “The Boss.”

Among other things, the bill aims to require all-in pricing, so the actual ticket price is displayed and no surprise fees pop up. It would require transparency on the primary market, so sellers would have to say how many tickets are actually being sold to the public, as opposed to ticket brokers. And it would put limits on secondary sellers, and make them disclose whether proceeds would be going to the primary ticket seller, venue or artist.

Whether the bill will have any effect, or have a chance at getting through Congress, remains to be seen. But nothing will change until someone puts the concerns of the audience — the fans — front and center.

Since Live Nation/Ticketmaster would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, it’s up to regulators and the artists themselves to step up. Federal agencies must re-examine the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and either get the companies to play by antitrust rules or break them up again. Artists should work to make their contracts with ticket companies free from surprises and transparent, so everyone can see what’s happening.

The fans who have been exploited by this system have some power, and it’s the power of saying “no.” If they don’t go to the shows, don’t pay the fees and don’t buy the merchandise, the ticket sellers, promoters, venues and artists don’t get paid. Nothing will get those groups to act faster than that. It’s exhausting always rooting for, or giving money to, the antihero — and fans can decide they don’t have to any more.