Ticketmaster faces mounting scrutiny after Taylor Swift ticket chaos - NBC News

Ticketmaster is facing mounting scrutiny, including from lawmakers and authorities authorities, implicit its merchantability practices aft outcry from Taylor Swift fans implicit website outages and agelong waits to bargain tickets for the singer’s upcoming “Eras” tour. 

In a letter addressed to Michael Rapino, the president and CEO of Ticketmaster's genitor institution Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., expressed, “serious concerns astir the authorities of contention successful the ticketing manufacture and its harmful interaction connected consumers.”

“Ticketmaster’s powerfulness successful the superior summons marketplace insulates it from the competitory pressures that typically propulsion companies to innovate and amended their services,” said Klobuchar, who is seat of a Senate subcommittee connected antitrust issues. “That tin effect successful the types of melodramatic work failures we saw this week, wherever consumers are the ones that wage the price.”

In the letter, the lawmaker asked Rapino to reply a drawstring of questions, including however overmuch the institution has spent to upgrade exertion to grip surges successful request and what percent of high-profile circuit tickets get reserved for presales. Ticketmaster and Live Nation did not instantly respond to a petition for remark from NBC News.

Tennessee's lawyer wide has separately said helium is launching an probe into Ticketmaster aft his bureau was flooded with complaints implicit the summons company's website crashing Tuesday arsenic Swift fans, known arsenic "Swifties" raced to bargain tickets for the "Eras" tour.

"Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is acrophobic astir user complaints related to @Ticketmaster. He and his Consumer Protection squad volition usage each disposable instrumentality to guarantee that nary user extortion laws were violated," Skrmetti's bureau said successful a tweet Wednesday.

Speaking astatine a quality league Wednesday, Skrmetti said helium was launching an anti-trust probe into Ticketmaster aft the presale debacle prompted wide frustration, NBC affiliate WSMV, based successful Nashville, reported.

Skrmetti said nary nonstop allegations of misconduct had been made against Ticketmaster, but helium said it was his occupation to analyse user complaints.

“If it’s a user extortion usurpation and we tin find precisely wherever the problems are, we tin get a tribunal bid that makes the institution bash better. That makes definite the problems that happened yesterday don’t hap again,” Skrmetti said, according to WSMV. “If it’s not a user extortion (violation), but it’s an anti-trust instrumentality that is violated, determination is simply a wide scope of options that are available.”

Skrmetti said his probe would see determining what Ticketmaster had promised customers and whether the institution delivered connected its promise.

The lawyer wide said helium besides had concerns astir Ticketmaster profiting doubly disconnected summons sales, with the website besides facilitating summons resales.

“There is an inducement determination for the institution to nett doubly disconnected the merchantability of these ticket,” helium said, according to WSMV. “I americium not saying it happened, but we are going to marque perfectly definite it didn’t.” Skrmetti's bureau did not respond to a petition aboriginal Thursday from NBC News for further comment.

In a statement posted to Twitter connected Tuesday, Ticketmaster said the presale summons clang happened aft its website saw a "historically unprecedented request with millions showing up to bargain tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale."

Swift’s 2023 U.S. tour, which launches successful March successful Arizona and ends successful August successful Los Angeles, has 52 performance dates, with Swift recently adding 17 dates to the archetypal circuit announcement.