WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Portal) – US senators criticized Live Nation Entertainment’s lack of transparency and inability to block bot purchases of tickets on Tuesday in a hearing called after a major ticket sales fiasco for Taylor Swift’s forthcoming concert tour.
Live Nation Entertainment Inc (LYV.N) subsidiary Ticketmaster, which has been unpopular with fans for years, got a breath of fresh air from US lawmakers about how it handled ticket sales for Swift’s “Eras” tour last fall has, her first in five years. According to experts, Ticketmaster has a market share of more than 70% in the primary ticketing services for major US concert halls.
“We apologize to the fans, we apologize to Ms. Swift, we have to do better and we will do better,” Live Nation president and chief financial officer Joe Berchtold told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
“Looking back, there are some things we could have done better — including staggering sales over time and giving fans better expectations of getting tickets,” said Berchtold.
Republican Senator Mike Lee said in an opening statement that the Ticketmaster debacle underscored the importance of considering whether “new legislation, or perhaps just better enforcement of existing laws, may be needed to protect the American people.”
LACK OF COMPETITION
Senators criticized Berchtold for Live Nation’s fee structure and inability to deal with bots that buy tickets in bulk and resell them at inflated prices.
“There is no transparency when nobody knows who sets the fees,” said Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, responding to Berchtold’s claim that Live Nation’s fees fluctuate based on “ratings.”
Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn called Live Nation’s bot problem “incredible,” noting that much smaller companies are able to restrict bad actors in their systems.
“You should be able to get good advice from people and find out,” she said.
[1/2] Taylor Swift arrives at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, United States on August 28, 2022. Portal/Eduardo Munoz
“I’m not against big per se, but I’m against stupid,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy, citing Live Nation’s dominance of the ticketing market. “The way your company handled ticket sales for Ms. Swift was a debacle and whoever was responsible at your company should be fired.
“If you care about the consumer, lower the price! Ditch the bots! Cut out the middlemen and if you really care about the consumer, give the consumer a break!”
Jack Groetzinger, co-founder of ticketing platform SeatGeek, testified that the process of buying tickets is “antiquated and ripe for innovation” and called for the dissolution of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged in 2010.
“As long as Live Nation remains both the dominant concert promoter and ticket provider to major venues across the United States, the industry will continue to lack competition and struggle,” he told lawmakers.
Ticketmaster has argued that the bots used by scalpers were behind the Taylor Swift debacle, and Berchtold asked for more help in the fight against the bots buying tickets for resale.
Other witnesses include Jerry Mickelson, President of JAM Productions, who is one of Ticketmaster’s critics.
In November, Ticketmaster canceled a scheduled ticket sale to the general public for Swift’s tour after more than 3.5 billion requests from fans, bots and scalpers flooded its website.
Senator Klobuchar, who heads the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, said the problems that emerged in November were not new and could possibly stem from consolidation in the ticketing industry.
In November, Ticketmaster denied anti-competitive practices, noting that it remained under a Justice Department consent decree after its merger with Live Nation in 2010, adding that there was no “evidence of systemic violations of the consent decree.”
A previous Ticketmaster dispute with the Justice Department culminated in a December 2019 settlement that extended the consent agreement through 2025.
Reporting by Diane Bartz, Moira Warburton and David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Diana Bartz