A group of over two dozen Swifties is suing Ticketmaster following the November presale disaster of tickets for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”
The lawsuit, which was submitted to a California court, accuses Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, of “anticompetitive conduct” following the “ticket sale disaster” in November.
The suit points out the Verified Fan presale caused the Ticketmaster site to crash and leave millions of fans unable to buy tickets, and the resulting cancelation of the tour’s public ticket sale due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticket systems” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory” to meet the demand.
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The plaintiffs allege that Ticketmaster forced Swifties to “exclusively use Ticketmaster for presale and sales prices, which are above what a competitive market price would be.” They also accuse the company of forcing attendees to “exclusively use Ticketmaster’s ‘Secondary Ticket Exchange’—i.e., the platform Ticketmaster operates for the resale of concert tickets,” which the suit claims Ticketmaster profits off of.
On the company website, it says that Ticketmaster adds an unspecified service fee on each ticket sold on the secondary ticket exchange. The suit also claims that the company has “conspired” with venues to force fans to buy more expensive tickets that Ticketmaster gets additional fees from every time the tickets are resold.
The plaintiffs also claim that Ticketmaster, “intentionally and purposefully mislead ticket purchasers by allowing scalpers and bots access to TaylorSwiftTix presale.” They are seeking damages amounting to $2,500 for each violation of Business and Professions Code section 17200.
CNN also reports that the Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into Live Nation, “to determine whether the company has a monopoly in the market for concerts, including ticket purchasing.”
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