Who's really to blame for Taylor Swift's Ticketmaster fiasco?
CBC
After overwhelming demand for Taylor Swift tickets caused a meltdown at Ticketmaster, many outraged fans demanded investigations and a shake-up of the ticketing giant. But a number of entertainment industry experts — and even some Swifties — have since been asking: Does the singer deserve some of the blame?
Some fans faced myriad error messages, while others endured an hours-long wait in Ticketmaster's virtual queue, only to find there were no reasonably priced tickets left after presales for Swift's Eras tour began on Nov. 15. Meanwhile, tickets that were originally priced from $49 to $449 US ($65 to $597 Cdn) skyrocketed on the resale market to as much as $28,000 US.
"We don't like to think of our favourite musicians as complicit in corporate greed … Instead, it's much easier to find a villain," industry writer Eriq Gardner, formerly of The Hollywood Reporter, wrote for the entertainment, finance and technology site Puck.
It's a role Ticketmaster has accepted, admitting its website wasn't ready for the traffic from millions of humans and bots, the latter of which were hoovering up tickets to be resold by scalpers.
Swift has received far less attention or blame.
Three days after the ticket fiasco, she said there were "a multitude of reasons" for it, but specified only Ticketmaster's inability to withstand demand.
"I'm trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward," Swift said in a statement.
Experts see plenty of ways.
"If there is a problem in the marketplace, it really is on the shoulders of some of the artists to do something about it," Gardner told CBC News. "If Taylor Swift stood up and said 'I want a better solution,' Ticketmaster would take notice of that."
Long before tickets go on sale, entertainers, their promoters and ticketing partners negotiate over how many tickets they need to sell and at what price, before agreeing on pricing tiers, how many tickets to reserve for different groups — including verified fans, certain credit card-holders and guests — and whether to allow resales.
"Artists, Ticketmaster, promoters, venues, organizations, they don't work in a vacuum," said Maureen Andersen, president and CEO of the International Ticketing Association, of which Ticketmaster and some of its personnel are members.
"It's a little bit like attacking [on] D-Day and doing the Normandy invasion — all of this stuff is worked out together."
Resales are the root problem. If scalpers can be deterred from trying to capitalize on particular shows or tours, a system like Ticketmaster's is much less likely to be overwhelmed by an army of ticket-gobbling bots.
And artists — especially those with Swift's level of stardom — can demand measures to ban or restrict resales.
Margaret Walker, the emcee of a Waterloo vigil commemorating the victims of the Montreal massacre, doesn't feel enough is being done to reflect on the killings and address gender-based violence.
The P.E.I. Humane Society says it is doing far more fundraising than it used to, and rising expenses — including the cost of animal medications — are a big reason why.
Ottawa is staring down a court-ordered deadline to submit a new plan to reform the on-reserve child welfare system, as a group of First Nations leaders and children’s advocates prepare a competing proposal.
An underpass revitalization project that was meant to pay tribute to the people of Parkdale has instead deteriorated into “a garbage dump,” according to nearby residents.
A young man has been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm after a fire at a frat party near Western University that injured five sorority sisters, including two seriously, late Tuesday night.
The massive deal to combine one of Hollywood's oldest studios with a streaming giant hasn't even been approved yet, but it's already riling multiple related industries and politicians concerned about monopolies and media concentration.
Mi'kmaq chiefs and a former Nova Scotia justice minister are criticizing the provincial government for directing police to crack down on illegal cannabis, saying the order undermines relations with Indigenous Peoples.
For years, there has been “glaring inequity” in the way the province has allocated the millions of dollars in its county roads budget, according to Department of Transportation Minister Chuck Chiasson.
Six months after passing a law aimed at making it easier for new grocery stores to open, Manitoba's premier says lower grocery bills could be on the horizon.
Timothy Smith was acting in self-defence when he punched Landon Waddell, and shouldn't be found guilty of manslaughter, his lawyer says.
Thoroughbred horse racing at Vancouver’s Hastings Racecourse is ending after more than a century, with the operator announcing Friday it will no longer run a racing season at the historic facility.
A memorial to remember lives lost to gender-based violence was held in Charlottetown Friday, ahead of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, which is marked annually on Dec. 6.
A Calgary dentist who defrauded five insurance companies over a decade should spend up to three years in prison, the prosecution argued Friday.