Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage throughout the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
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Taylor Swift’s trip promoter is moving blame for the bungled “Eras” ticket sale directly onto Ticketmaster, possibly sustaining much more issues about the Live Nation- owned ticket seller’s dominant function in the market.
AEG Presents, the business in charge of handling Swift’s upcoming trip, has actually turned down claims made by Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s biggest investor, Liberty Media, that the promoter picked to deal with the ticketing website.
“Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the ‘Eras’ tour required us to ticket through their system,” AEG stated in a declaration to CNBC. “We didn’t have a choice.”
Live Nation didn’t instantly react to CNBC’s ask for remark.
AEG Presents’ remark is the current program of finger-pointing after the general public ticket sale was canceled recently due to severe need. Swift herself blamed an “outside entity” and stated she would not “make excuses for anyone.”
Last week, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei blamed overzealous Swifties and bots for the need that crashed its website and resulted in hold-ups in ticket sales. Lawmakers, likeRep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., required more oversight on Live Nation, which combined with Ticketmaster in 2010, revealing antitrust issues. But Maffei safeguarded Ticketmaster’s status in the market and stated AEG “chose to use us.”
A union of activists called “Break Up Ticketmaster” has actually declared that since Live Nation controls 70% of the ticketing and live occasion places market, entertainers and their agents have little option of where to offer their tickets. They have actually contacted the Department of Justice to examine Ticketmaster and Live Nation for “hiking up ticket prices” and “charging rip-off junk fees.”
On Friday, The New York Times reported the Justice Department had actually currently opened an antitrust examination into Live Nation’s practices prior to the Swift ticket sale mess.
