More than two dozen Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster parent Live Nation Entertainment for “unlawful conduct” in the pop star’s chaotic tour sale, claiming the ticketing giant violated antitrust laws, among others.
The lawsuit, filed in a California court on Friday, alleges Ticketmaster and its parent company were anti-competitive, imposing higher prices on fans in the presale, sale and resale market. It claims Ticketmaster forces concertgoers to exclusively use its site and controls all registration and access to Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”
The Swifties are seeking a penalty of $2,500 for each violation, which could add up, based on the millions of angered fans who did not receive tickets.
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The lawsuit also claimed that since Ticketmaster has agreements with the large stadiums in the tour, Swift “has no choice” but to work with Ticketmaster due to the size of her fan base. It also alleges that Ticketmaster profits off the resale of tickets in the secondary market by adding a service fee to its fan-to-fan exchange.
“Ticketmaster is a monopoly that is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public,” according to the lawsuit.
Pre-sale tickets for “The Eras Tour” frustrated Swift fans across the country in a debacle that stayed in the headlines for weeks. In November, “Verified Fans” were sent a presale code — but when sales began, heavy demand snarled the website and millions of Swifties could not get their hands on a ticket. Presale tickets for Capital One card holders brought similar frustration — and then Ticketmaster canceled sales to the general public, citing “extraordinarily high demand” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
The lawsuit alleges the company “intentionally and purposely misled TaylorSwiftTix presale ticket holders by providing codes to 1.4 million ‘verified fans,” despite the shortage of seats. Ticketmaster said more than two million tickets were sold on the first day of sales for her upcoming tour — the most ever sold for an artist in a single day.
