Taylor Swift fans sue Ticketmaster over ‘disastrous’ presale debacle
Global News
In a new lawsuit, a small group of unified Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster and Live Nation for 'fraud, price-fixing, and antitrust violations.'
There’s Bad Blood between Swifties and Ticketmaster.
A group of Taylor Swift fans have taken legal action against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation over November’s presale fiasco, which left hundreds of thousands of fans without tickets to the singer’s 2023 Eras Tour.
The lawsuit takes issue with Ticketmaster’s Nov. 15 “Verified Fan” presale, a common practice by Ticketmaster that aims to limit the number of scalpers and bots buying tickets to popular shows by providing registered fans with a special ticket-buying code.
As per the lawsuit, which was obtained by Deadline, a small group of unified Swifties are suing the ticketing site for “fraud, price-fixing, and antitrust violations.”
The fans claim in the legal filing that “millions of fans waited up to eight hours and were unable to purchase tickets as a result of insufficient ticket releases and other issues similar to the prior presale.”
The fiasco came to a head on Nov. 17 when Ticketmaster cancelled the general sale for Swift’s U.S. Eras Tour “due to extraordinarily high demands.”
The fans allege Ticketmaster engaged in “intentional deception” during its presale and allowed scalpers to buy and resell the majority of tickets. The lawsuit claims Ticketmaster was “eager to allow” scalpers to buy tickets so that the company could collect fees for reselling seats on its website.
