Taylor Swift fans are continuing to get vocal (and legal) about their frustrations with Ticketmaster’s bungled launch of tickets for the singer’s upcoming ‘Eras’ tour.
On 15th November, fans were able to access tickets for the North American tour, but instead reported outlandish wait times in Ticketmaster’s online queue, outages to the company’s website, and hyper-inflated prices on resale sites.
Ticketmaster later admitted it struggled with the “historically unprecedented demand” they faced from Swift’s fans, and scrapped the general sale entirely. In response, a group of around three dozen fans, mostly lawyers, banded together to launch the ‘Vigilante Legal’ campaign to protest Ticketmaster and its involvement in the tour.
Two class action lawsuits have since been filed against Ticketmaster, alleging the company violated two state laws – the California Cartwright Act and the California Unfair Competition Law – during its ‘Verified Fan’ pre-sale. The first lawsuit was filed in California on 2nd December, and the second, filed at a federal level on Tuesday (20th December), makes many of the same accusations. The documents allege Ticketmaster misled millions of fans by allowing scalpers and bots access to the pre-sale, and that the company was willing to “intentionally provide codes when it could not satisfy ticket demand”.
The lawsuits have caught the attention of US lawmakers, who are calling for an investigation into the company. A Senate-backed antitrust panel has also organised a hearing on the lack of competition in the ticketing industry, while two US senators called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to answer for “the steps” it’s taking to “combat the use and operation of bots in the online ticket marketplace”.
The ‘Eras’ tour is in support of Taylor Swift’s 10th album, ‘Midnights’, which recently broke a new record by selling six million copies in eight weeks. The tour will feature special guests Paramore, beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers, Girl In Red, MUNA and Haim.
