In November 2022, Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, faced strong public and political criticism for problems during the sale of tickets for the 2023 United States leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, the sixth concert tour by the singer. This event was often called the "Taylor Swift–Ticketmaster fiasco" by media outlets.
Media reports described the demand for Eras Tour tickets as extremely high, with 3.5 million people signing up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan pre-sale program in the U.S. When the ticket sale began online on November 15, 2022, the website crashed within an hour. Many users were logged out or stuck in a frozen queue. Despite the issues, 2.4 million tickets were sold, setting a record for the most tickets sold in a single day by any artist. Ticketmaster said the crash was caused by an overwhelming amount of traffic, calling the demand "historically unprecedented." However, users reported poor customer service. Live Nation claimed the high demand "overwhelmed" their systems and canceled the general sale due to "insufficient" ticket inventory, offering an apology.
Scalpers, or people who buy tickets to sell at higher prices, purchased many tickets and listed them on resale websites for very high prices. Fans and consumer groups accused Ticketmaster of being dishonest. In response, several members of the U.S. Congress called for ending the 2010 merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which they said created a monopoly with no competition, leading to bad service and high prices. Swift’s tour promoter, AEG Presents, stated that Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with most U.S. live venues forced AEG to work with them. In December 2022, fans filed lawsuits against Ticketmaster for issues like intentional deception, fraud, price fixing, and antitrust violations. Reports noted that the controversy showed a long-standing problem in the music industry and that the U.S. Department of Justice had been investigating the merger.
In 2023, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing where senators criticized Ticketmaster. States like New York, Texas, and California passed laws banning scalper bots and regulating ticket pricing. After pressure from then-President Joe Biden, Ticketmaster and other ticket platforms agreed to remove hidden fees and display all costs upfront. Ticketmaster faced more criticism for European Eras Tour ticket sales, leading to a legal request for information from the U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In 2024, the U.S. federal government, supported by 40 U.S. states, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation–Ticketmaster, accusing the company of unfair business practices that harmed the live music industry and seeking to end the merger. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned all deceptive or unexpected fees. In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking the FTC to stop price gouging by ticket resellers. Two people who hacked over 900 tickets on StubHub and earned $635,000 illegally were charged in New York City for tampering, money laundering, and theft.
In April 2026, a federal jury ruled that Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, held an illegal monopoly that violated federal and state antitrust laws and allowed Ticketmaster to charge unfairly high ticket prices.
Background
Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American company that sells and distributes tickets for events. It is based in Beverly Hills, California, and operates in many countries worldwide. The company was founded in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1976 by Peter Gadwa, Albert Leffler, and Gordon Gunn III, who were college employees and a businessman.
In 1994, the American rock band Pearl Jam reported to the U.S. Department of Justice that Ticketmaster had almost complete control over selling concert tickets and tried to book its tour only at places that did not use Ticketmaster. No action was taken against Ticketmaster. By the 21st century, Ticketmaster had become the largest ticket-selling company in the world.
In February 2009, Ticketmaster agreed to merge with Live Nation, the largest event promoter in the world, to create a new company called Live Nation Entertainment. The U.S. Justice Department approved the merger in January 2010, but required Ticketmaster to sell a company called Paciolan to another firm and to allow its software to be used by a competitor, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). The new company was also required to follow rules for 10 years that prevented it from punishing venues that worked with other ticketing companies. Michael Rapino, the CEO of Live Nation, became the CEO of the new company.
Ticketmaster faced several controversies, including claims of unfair competition, dishonest practices with ticket resellers, data breaches, misleading pricing, and changing ticket prices. Consumer groups reported that Ticketmaster and Live Nation control more than 70% of the market for primary ticket sales and live event venues. The merger was criticized for many years. In 2022, both companies faced public criticism and media attention for their use of dynamic pricing and a "platinum" ticket model. This model was used for tickets to concerts by Bruce Springsteen and Blink-182 in 2023, where some tickets sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars during early sales or general public sales.
On October 21, 2022, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released her tenth studio album, Midnights, which was a great success and received positive reviews. On November 1, she announced her sixth concert tour, called the Eras Tour, which would promote Midnights and all of her previous albums. The U.S. leg of the tour, which originally included 27 shows in 20 cities, began on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, and ended on August 9, 2023, in Inglewood, California. Tickets for these shows were sold through Ticketmaster. Some shows, like those in Glendale, were also sold through SeatGeek. Due to high demand, eight additional shows were added in November 2022, and 17 more were added the following week, making the Eras Tour the largest U.S. tour of Swift’s career with 52 dates.
U.S. tickets for the Eras Tour were available to the general public on November 18, 2022. Capital One cardholders had early access on November 15. Fans who signed up for the Ticketmaster Verified Fan program between November 1 and 9 received a code to access a presale on November 15. Swift did not use the "platinum ticket" model for the tour. Ticketmaster stated that the presale helped fans get tickets without the help of bots or resellers. It also noted that if demand was higher than the number of tickets available, some fans might be chosen randomly to participate in the presale. USA Today reported that the listing for the Nashville dates included a note that "ticket prices may change based on demand at any time."
Website crash
The Eras Tour had a very high demand for tickets, which showed problems with planning and readiness. On November 15, the day of the presale, Ticketmaster's website crashed because of "unusually high demand with millions of people trying to access it." This stopped the presale from happening. Within less than an hour, Ticketmaster's servers could not handle the traffic, and users faced problems—either being logged out or stuck in a queue with over 2,000 people, according to Rolling Stone. Ticketmaster released a statement saying they were working to fix the issues, explaining that the site was not ready for the large number of Taylor Swift fans. They also reported that "hundreds of thousands of tickets" had already been sold and moved the rest of the presale, including the Capital One presale, to November 16. The public on-sale was later canceled because of "very high demand on ticketing systems" and not enough tickets left to meet that demand. The Eras Tour sold over two million tickets on the first day of the presale alone, breaking the record for the most concert tickets sold by an artist in one day.
During and after the website crash, fans and customers criticized Ticketmaster on social media for their ticketing process, which made buying tickets difficult. According to The New York Times, the ticket sale failure "broke the internet." The term "Ticketmaster" became the top trend worldwide on social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok. CNN Business said the "very high" demand showed Taylor Swift's popularity. However, Fortune and Bloomberg News pointed out that criticism was directed at Ticketmaster's "confusing multi-step buying process with extra fees," as well as "long waits, technical problems, and poor customer service."
Responses and impact
Greg Maffei, chairman of Live Nation, spoke to CNBC on November 16. He said Ticketmaster planned to handle 1.5 million verified fans but 14 million attended: "we could have filled 900 stadiums." In a detailed statement, Ticketmaster explained that 3.5 million fans signed up for the Verified Fan program—the largest in its history—2 million of whom were placed on a waitlist while 1.5 million were allowed to buy tickets first. The company noted that only 40% of invited fans usually show up and buy tickets, and most purchase an average of 3 tickets. However, the website was overwhelmed by the "very large" number of fans and bots without presale codes, leading to "3.5 billion total system requests—four times the site's previous peak." To manage the traffic, Ticketmaster slowed the sale by adding more customers to the waitlist, which made waiting times longer. On November 17, Ticketmaster confirmed the November 18 public on-sale was canceled because it could not meet demand.
Maffei also said, "AEG, our competitor, who promotes Taylor Swift, chose to use us because we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world… Even our competitors want to work with us." However, AEG denied this claim, stating it was required to use Ticketmaster due to "exclusive deals with most venues on the Eras Tour" that forced them to sell tickets through Ticketmaster's system.
Taylor Swift released a statement on November 18, 2022, via her Instagram story. She said she was "angry" and called the situation "excruciating." She emphasized she wanted to protect her fans and ensure a good experience but found it hard to "trust an outside entity" with these relationships. She noted that she was "not going to make excuses" because she had asked Ticketmaster multiple times if it could handle the demand and was assured it could.
Later that day, Ticketmaster apologized to Taylor and her fans on Twitter. It added that "less than 5% of the tour's tickets have been sold or listed for resale on sites like StubHub." Ticketmaster also denied claims of unfair competition, stating it is "under a consent decree with the Justice Department" from its 2010 merger with Live Nation and that there is "no evidence of breaking the rules."
Former Ticketmaster CEO Fred Rosen did not apologize for the issues, telling the Los Angeles Times, "The public brought this on itself… I have no sympathy for people complaining about high ticket prices… Artists and the market set prices, and you can't expect to pay cheap prices for expensive experiences." He argued that solutions to the problem might make things worse for fans.
On December 12, 2022, Ticketmaster began offering a second chance to buy tickets to some fans who had signed up for the Verified Fan presale but did not purchase tickets. These fans could buy up to two tickets each. Ticketmaster said Taylor Swift's team requested this opportunity. Billboard reported that the remaining 170,000 unsold tickets were sold over four weeks through Ticketstoday, a platform originally created for Dave Matthews Band's fanclub but later sold to Live Nation. This was done to reduce wait times and avoid website congestion.
Taylor Swift's fans, called "Swifties," were very upset with the situation. Some filed lawsuits. A group called Vigilante Legal LLC, formed by fans and professionals with legal, government, and technology backgrounds, collected complaints about Ticketmaster's practices, including possible violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The group aimed to share these complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.
Voters of Tomorrow, a political group led by Generation Z, started an antitrust campaign called "S.W.I.F.T." (Swifties Working to Increase Fairness from Ticketmaster) on November 17. The campaign aimed to push for laws that give the federal government more power to stop future monopolies in entertainment.
To avoid scalpers, some fans used social media to create groups like "@ErasTourResell" and "TS Tour Connect." These groups used spreadsheets, Google Forms, and online boards to help fans sell and buy tickets at face value. Volunteers checked tickets through screen recordings and emails before posting listings. ErasTourResell, led by three Swift fans, helped arrange over 1,300 ticket transactions by March 2023 and helped more than 3,000 fans get tickets at face value by July 2023.
After many social media complaints, U.S. lawmakers and consumer groups took notice. On November 15, 2022, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Ticketmaster a monopoly and said its merger with Live Nation should be broken up. Other lawmakers, including Bill Pascrell and Richard Blumenthal, criticized the merger and called for investigations into the ticketing industry. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who leads a Senate committee on competition, wrote to Ticketmaster's CEO, expressing concerns about the company's power in the ticket market and its impact on consumers.
Media reception
Various journalists discussed how the controversy brought attention to monopolies in the music industry and how it might help the industry. Most publications referred to the situation as "the Taylor Swift Ticketmaster fiasco." Fortune stated that the controversy "started a fan-led movement to challenge Ticketmaster." Pitchfork asked, "Is there any other artist who could push the federal government to investigate a music industry monopoly just by touring?" Arwa Mahdawi wrote in The Guardian, "Swift has had a successful career. However, if she helps people notice the poor state of antitrust laws in the U.S., that could be her greatest achievement." Brooke Schultz of Associated Press explained that Swift's fans turned a website crash into a political movement and that they are considered an influential voting group. She wrote, "The size and influence of Swift's fanbase sparked discussions about economic inequality, as shown by the Ticketmaster issue." Variety noted that Ticketmaster–Live Nation did not admit fault for the problem, "defending itself without apology" during the federal investigation and only apologizing after "a drop in Live Nation's stock value by nearly 8% on Friday, November 18, 2022."
Pollstar, an American concert business publication, predicted that Swift would earn $728 million from her 52 U.S. tour dates and "a billion dollars" globally, surpassing Ed Sheeran's record with fewer dates than his ÷ Tour. The publication stated, "If Taylor Swift were a country and its economy relied only on ticket sales, it would rank as the 199th largest economy in the world, similar to a small Caribbean nation."
A December 2022 episode of Impact, a weekly program on Hulu's Nightline that explores current issues, focused on the controversy. The episode was titled "Taylor's Ticketmaster Disaster."
On December 8, 2022, Slate published an analysis of the controversy, concluding that Swift's fans were correct in saying Ticketmaster "exploited them for profit." Statistical data from a sample of over 2,200 users showed that those with special Verified Fan "boosts"—including codes given to customers who had previously bought tickets to the canceled Lover Fest and were supposed to be prioritized—were less likely to secure tickets than those without boosts. The report stated, "It seems boosts not only failed to help, they actually hurt," and noted that the boosting system worked as intended only for SeatGeek users.
On December 12, The Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the matter," reported details about the website crash. It said that 2.6 million seats were available for the tour, with 3.5 million people registering through the fan program. Of those, 1.5 million received pre-sale codes, which would typically result in 1.8 million tickets sold. However, 12 million unique users, including scalper bots, accessed the website that day, sending 3.5 billion requests to the site, which caused the crash. Before the crash, 2.4 million tickets were sold, and 163,300 tickets from the canceled general sale remained—6% of the total seats. The Wall Street Journal also suggested that if Ticketmaster had sold tickets over several days instead of all at once, as it did for the Reputation Stadium Tour, the pre-sale might not have crashed.
On January 3, 2023, The Guardian reported that Live Nation–Ticketmaster is spending heavily on lobbying efforts with the Department of Justice and pushing for laws requiring "greater transparency in ticket sales."
On January 23, The Los Angeles Times published an article titled "How Ticketmaster became the most hated name in music," in which it quoted a "high-ranking concert executive" (speaking anonymously) who said, "Ticketmaster made a mistake by selling all the Eras tour tickets at once and allowing fans to choose their own seats, which caused traffic problems," and that "the Verified Fan database had many fake email addresses from resellers."
Forbes and The Hollywood Reporter listed Swift as one of 2022's most powerful women in entertainment. Entertainment Weekly included "Swifties vs. Ticketmaster" as one of the biggest pop culture moments of 2022. The magazine's Allaire Nuss wrote, "If there was ever an artist with enough influence to challenge the music industry's most disliked monopoly, it's Taylor Swift." Due to the controversy, The Washington Post said that 2022 was another year in which Swift dominated, maintaining "a strong influence on our divided world and its discussions in a way few others can." Vox included the controversy in its year-end summary of 2022's important events. The A.V. Club listed "Ticketmaster faces the wrath of the Swifties" as one of the 30 biggest popular culture news stories of 2022.
Further controversy
After the controversy, Ticketmaster's technical problems during other concert tours have been reported in the media and criticized by fans. These issues are often compared to the problems that happened during the U.S. Eras Tour. In December 2022, Ticketmaster faced another controversy when a large number of fake tickets were sold for the Mexico City dates of the World's Hottest Tour, a 2022 concert tour by Puerto Rican rapper-singer Bad Bunny. Ticketmaster explained that the fake tickets caused temporary problems with their system, making it hard to check which tickets were real. Ricardo Sheffield, head of Mexico's consumer protection agency, said in a Radio Fórmula interview that Ticketmaster would have to pay a fine of up to 10% of its 2021 earnings and also pay at least 20% of the ticket price to affected customers. In December 2022, American country singer Zach Bryan criticized Ticketmaster for how it handled his Burn Burn Burn Tour. He made tickets for the tour non-transferable to stop scalpers and later released a live album called All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster.
In February 2023, American singer Beyoncé announced her ninth concert tour, the Renaissance World Tour, and partnered with Ticketmaster. This news caused concerns on social media, as fans worried about problems similar to those during Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. Ticketmaster said the demand for the Renaissance World Tour would be high and promised to use a "multistep verification process" to ensure tickets were sold to real concertgoers, not scalpers. The company would continue selling tickets through its Verified Fan program for the North American leg of the tour but would replace the regular on-sale with a staggered sale. It also would not initially offer a public on-sale.
In March 2023, fans of Canadian artist Drake filed a class action lawsuit against Ticketmaster in the Superior Court of Quebec. They accused Ticketmaster of intentional deception and fraud, saying the on-sale for the It's All a Blur Tour, a co-headlining tour by Drake and 21 Savage, hid information about extra show dates to increase demand and ticket prices. The lawsuit seeks $300 in punitive damages per customer and compensatory damages to cover the difference between "Official Platinum" ticket prices and regular ticket prices.
For the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool in May 2023, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the BBC partnered with Ticketmaster. Before the ticket platform went live, many users reported that the Ticketmaster website crashed with a 500 error. Tickets for the contest's final sold out in 36 minutes, and the remaining shows sold out within an hour. After this, tickets became available on third-party resale platforms like Viagogo, with a general admission standing ticket for the final, originally priced at £380, being sold for up to £11,800.
In June 2023, the Eras Tour's Paris and Lyon dates in France had the highest demand ever for a presale. Angelo Gopee, head of Live Nation France, said the demand was so high that many people joined virtual queues just to sign up for a mailing list that might grant access to tickets. He noted that such high demand had never been seen in France before. Ticketmaster paused the French presales on July 11, 2023, due to login problems. In July 2023, the United Kingdom ticket sale for the Eras Tour was handled by Ticketmaster and AXS. Forbes reported that many tickets were quickly resold on sites like StubHub and Viagogo at very high prices. Kevin Brennan, a Member of Parliament from Cardiff, called for a debate in the UK House of Commons about ticket scalpers and the government's plan to address the issue.