Ticketmaster has once again cracked under the weight of Taylor Swift ticket sales – this time in France.
French fans were gearing up Tuesday to buy tickets for six concerts on Swift’s Eras Tour in May and June 2024 — Four shows in Paris, two in Lyon – Ticketmaster’s website showed a huge queue of customers ready to buy; A screenshot appeared to tell a fan 1,023,504 Shopkeepers lined up in front of them.
Soon, Ticketmaster declared Sales for those shows have been put on “pause.” The company said new sale hours will be announced and “all codes not already used will remain valid.” But some fans’ social media posts appeared to show technical errors on Ticketmaster’s website, which had a progress icon that read “spinning, spinning, spinning.” A fan – speaks English with an American accent, but tickets worth 762 euros in their shopping cart – keep it.
A few hours later, Ticketmaster’s French branch delivered A few more details On social media, the company blamed the problem on an unidentified “third-party provider” and said tickets were still available. A representative of Ticketmaster’s corporate parent, Live Nation Entertainment, said the provider only works with Ticketmaster in France.
The situation in France seemed to repeat the frustration of the problems that plagued Swift’s North American presale in November, when millions of fans — and bots — overwhelmed Ticketmaster systems, and fans complained of tickets disappearing from their shopping carts. Can buy. As a result, Ticketmaster halted its public sale said It sold more than two million tickets in a single day.
Problems with Swift’s presale in November — as well as lingering concerns about Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s market dominance — led to a brutal Senate Judiciary hearing in January. Senators from both parties pointedly called the company a monopoly and were skeptical of the executive’s explanation that Ticketmaster was unable to defend itself against an onslaught of bots during Swift’s pre-sale.
“It’s unbelievable,” Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, said at the hearing. “Why is that,” he added, “that you haven’t developed a mechanism to sort out what’s a bot and what’s a consumer?”
However demand for Swift tickets is extraordinary, selling out stadiums everywhere Swift plays and selling tickets for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. He plans to wrap up his North American tour next month and then play in Latin America, Asia and Europe.
The Justice Department is conducting a separate antitrust investigation into Live Nation. The Justice Department has not confirmed that investigation, but Michael Rapinoe, chief executive of Live Nation, has Spoken Be frank about it.
