The US ticket seller Ticketmaster has canceled advance ticket sales for singer Taylor Swift’s US tour for today after chaotic conditions. In the days before, the company’s servers had collapsed several times due to the enormous rush for tickets.
Ticketmaster announced in a tweet yesterday afternoon (local time) that public ticket sales had been canceled due to “extraordinarily high demands on the ticketing system and insufficient remaining stock”.
US policy called into action
The events had even called US politics into action. US Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Antitrust Committee, wrote a letter to Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., expressing “serious concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its detrimental impact on consumers.” .
The problems with ticket sales could bring the company more than just the wrath of Swift fans. Ever since Ticketmaster merged with its former competitor Live Nation to form Live Nation Entertainment, it has dominated the live events music business and has repeatedly been accused of exploiting its monopoly position.
In addition to Klobuchar, several Democratic congressmen, including prominent progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and David Cicilline, also weighed in on the recent chaos. They again demanded that the merger be reversed and the monopoly dissolved.