Things are not looking good for Ticketmaster right now. They company has been under intense scrutiny since they faced substantial issues with the launch of tickets for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. A Justice Department investigation was apparently ongoing before all this happened, but now Congress is set to take a closer look at them, too: US Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) (who are Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee On Competition Policy, Antitrust, And Consumer Rights) announced yesterday (November 22) that they will hold a Congressional hearing to “examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry.”
In a statement shared on Klobuchar’s website yesterday, she said:
“Last week, the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets. The high fees, site disruptions, and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve. That’s why we will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike. When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.”
Lee also noted:
“American consumers deserve the benefit of competition in every market, from grocery chains to concert venues. I look forward to exercising our Subcommittee’s oversight authority to ensure that anticompetitive mergers and exclusionary conduct are not crippling an entertainment industry already struggling to recover from pandemic lockdowns.”
A date for the hearing or a list of witnesses have not yet been revealed.
