Back in November, Ticketmaster experienced an unprecedented amount of users all trying to get tickets for the upcoming Taylor Swift tour.
The massive influx of traffic to the website, several million according to Ticketmaster, caused the website to a halt leaving thousands of fans extremely disappointed.
During the Taylor Swift onsale, Joe Berchtold, president of Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation is due to state that the website was “hit with three times the amount of bot traffic than we had ever experienced, and for the first time in 400 Verified Fan on-sales, they came after our Verified Fan access code servers. While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause our sales.”
Bots are computer programs that are designed to circumvent the ticket purchasing restrictions set up by companies such as Ticketmaster. With the use of these automated bots, tickets for the general public become more difficult to purchase. Governments in both the UK and US (2016 BOTS (Better Online Ticket Sales) Act) have made this practice illegal, however this incident demonstrates that it still occurs.
Why Does Ticketmaster Have the Majority Share of the Market?
For many years, Ticketmaster has been the biggest force in the both the primary and secondary ticket market. The merger with Live Nation made this even bigger with an estimated 80% of the market being controlled by this one entity. Many venues both in the US and Europe have exclusive deals with Ticketmaster for them to manage their ticket sales, removing competition entirely from selling primary tickets. Other ticket companies such as Seat Compare are subsequently only able to offer primary tickets via Ticketmaster meaning that the customer only has one place of purchase.
Antitrust-Laws
The Ticketmaster company are under scrutiny and are accused of operating a ‘monopoly’ in the ticketing industry. Critics have used the Taylor Swift incident as evidence that there is no real competition in the marketplace and therefore no incentives to offer a quality service. Some fans, 26 from 13 states have even filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster in LA accusing them of price-fixing and antitrust violations.
With the U.S. Justice Department now taking a closer look at Ticketmaster and it’s parent company Live Nation, changes in the industry will be expected. Whilst the company state that the Artists set the final price of the tickets, the service fees that Ticketmaster charge can be as much as 25% of the total cost. Additionally, Ticketmaster will have to limit the number of automated bots that purchase the tickets, as much as 60% of the tickets are sold via this method according to the company.
Whilst changes will be expected, the huge demand for Taylor Swift tickets this summer will still be there, for many they will have to purchase tickets via secondary ticket websites, at a much higher price than the original cost.
The inability to stop automated software from purchasing tickets has plagued the industry since tickets went online, as of yet there has been no real solution that works 100%.
