Featured Image Credit: Doug Peters / Alamy Stock Photo/M4OS Photos / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Taylor Swift, Money, Crime, Music
Daisy Phillipson
Topics: Taylor Swift, Money, Crime, Music
Taylor Swift fans are officially suing Ticketmaster's parent company after the presale for her upcoming tour turned into a disaster.
The company came under fire last month over its handling of sales for the US leg of the singer's 2023 'The Eras Tour'.
After unprecedented demand for presale tickets, leading to site crashes, it cancelled the main sale entirely.
And it wasn't long before tickets were being offloaded on resale sites for extortionate prices, with some going for as much as $95,000 each.
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After the Hunger Games-style pre-sale, Ticketmaster explained that it had been met with unprecedented demand.
Nonetheless, the fans are not happy – so much so that a group of them are now suing its parent company Live Nation Entertainment.
Court documents show that the plaintiffs claim the company wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of ticket sales.
It alleges a breach of contract, intentional misrepresentation, fraud and fraudulent inducement, as well as several antitrust violations.
The documents highlight the 'ticket sale disaster' that unfolded on 15 and 16 November, as well as the 'cancellation of general sale tickets' on 18 November,
"Based on information and belief, Ticketmaster has effectuated this anticompetitive scheme by forcing fans of musicians to exclusively use Ticketmaster for presale and sale prices, which are above what a competitive market price would be," it states.
"Ticketmaster has also forced attendees to exclusively use Ticketmaster’s 'Secondary Ticket Exchange'—i.e., the platform Ticketmaster operates for the resale of concert tickets."
The file goes on to allege that although Ticketmaster has claimed to have taken steps to address the issue of ticket scalpers, 'in reality', it has 'taken steps to make additional profit from the scalped tickets'.
"Ticketmaster forces purchases of tickets from its site to use only Ticketmaster's Secondary Ticket Exchange for the resale of those tickets," it says.
"Ticketmaster then gets the higher fees paid by fans who have no choice but to pay for the 'right' to use the Ticketmaster Secondary Ticket Exchange platform...
"Instead of competition, Ticketmaster has conspired with stadiums to force fans to buy more expensive tickets that Ticketmaster gets additional fees from every time the tickets are resold."
As for the damages, the suit is requesting a find of $2,500 per violation of the Business and Professions Code, section 17200, which would add up to a hefty sum for a stadium show of this kind.
In a statement shared with Today, Jennifer Kinder – an attorney who is representing the plaintiffs – said: "We believe that both Taylor Swift and her fans were hurt by Ticketmaster.
"Ticketmaster messed with the wrong fan base."
UNILAD has contacted Ticketmaster for comment.