Announcer: This is The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry from WNYC and PRX in collaboration with GBH News in Boston.
[music]
Melissa Harris-Perry: Ticketmaster might find itself in need of a renaissance as Beyonce tickets go on sale today. Fans are already getting information and hoping their efforts to purchase tickets won't break their souls. Live Nation, the company that owns Ticketmaster is still in the hot seat for the botched rollout of Taylor Swift tickets last winter. Executives from the company were called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to address the failure and charges of the company existing as a monopoly.
Ticketmaster reports demand for Beyonce tickets already exceed supply by 800%, as fans and Congress watch and wait to see how it's set to unfold throughout the day. Joining me now is Makena Kelly, political reporter for The Verge. Makena, welcome to the show.
Makena: Pleasure to be here.
Melissa Harris-Perry: We saw what happened with Ticketmaster when Taylor Swift's tickets went on sale late last year. Now, Beyonce is set to break the internet as her tickets are on sale today. Can you briefly tell us what exactly went wrong with Ticketmaster during the Taylor Swift tickets debacle?
Makena: If we go back to last fall when Taylor Swift announced her ERAS Tour, people were extremely excited. Of course, when it comes to any new Taylor Swift concert, she hasn't been on tour in a very long time so people were very, very, very excited. When the announcement came, people were waiting in these extremely long online queues, and for as long as they were waiting, sometimes they would finally get to the end of the line and there would be no tickets for them to buy, or Ticketmaster would shut down and not work for them.
Of course, this made people justifiably angry. If you look at what Live Nation was saying, they said they were under bot attacks. They were under so many different kinds of things. When it came to the Senate Judiciary hearing where they testified, they basically attributed it all to bots. Now with Beyonce's tickets on set to go on sale today, especially after she just won, is one of the top Grammy Award winners of all time as of last night. I think they really have to be on their toes.
Melissa Harris-Perry: That leads me to the big question. Is Ticketmaster prepared to handle the onslaught of ticket purchase requests that Beyonce's concerts will certainly bring? I mean, it's Beyonce. It's the Queen.
Makena: If you look at Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster. Supposedly, if you look at a couple of different studies, they control 70% of the ticketing market. That's basically, far more than a majority. If something goes wrong with this ticket rollout, it affects people all across the country and their ability to get these tickets, and people really want them.
I was just doing a quick look this morning and people have already started GoFundMe's to make sure that they can go, all of this crazy stuff, and if they mess up, I don't know.
You'd think that they would have solved it, but if this is a bot issue and they haven't created any meaningful guardrails to protect from that since Taylor Swift, I have no idea what's gonna happen today.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk about that a bit more. What has the company done to address the issues that initially arose in the aftermath of [unintelligible 00:03:17] flooding the sale of Swift tickets last year?
Makena: Live Nation, of course, testified before Congress and made all of these promises that this would never happen again. They attributed it all basically to bots, which is really silly hearing that because bots have been an issue in the industry for extremely long time. There has been bills in the past about bots spying toys for people online, the hottest Christmas toys, and all these things.
Ticketmaster just kind of attributed it to that. Of course, now, they're saying that they're putting more resources and things towards that infrastructure, but it hasn't been tested in the same way that it was under Taylor Swift's rollout as it will be with Beyonce today.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Quick pause. I'm going to try to go get these tickets while we're talking, back right after this on The Takeaway. We're back with Makena Kelly, political reporter at The Verge. We're talking about Ticketmaster and how Queen B may bring it all down. Live Nation executives who own Ticketmaster faced the Judiciary Committee last month.
Part of their questioning focused on Ticketmaster's lack of competition. You talked about how 70%, it's pretty much the majority. You can only get tickets from Ticketmaster pretty much. What did senators have to say about the ticket-purchasing service during that committee?
Makena: It's not even just 70% of the market. As we were watching that hearing, the interesting thing too is we're hearing that even if they don't hold a certain part of the market or control a certain venue, they like to strike these three to seven-year contracts with venues, making sure that no other ticketing service can go in there and compete with them and basically clearing the market for them for almost like a decade in certain localities in the United States.
It's not even just the ticketing market, but also the venues. Live Nation has been buying its own venues and of course, their own venue is not going to try and strike a better deal with its owner's company. It's creating this crazy control over all of these parts of the market and in a way that only really benefits Ticketmaster rather than the artists or the venues or other people in the music industry.
Melissa Harris-Perry: President Biden even got into the mix and he's calling on Congress to pass the Junk Fee Prevention Act. Tell us what the president is proposing here.
Makena: I thought that was really interesting when he rolled it out last week. Basically, it attacks everything that is really annoying about buying things on the internet. It's anything having to do with any fees from subscribing to the internet to junk fees when you buy tickets online. Sometimes when you go to buy a ticket for Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, whoever, the fees are oftentimes, if not more expensive, but just as expensive as the ticket price itself. Those fees go directly to the ticketing service. I think if there was anything that the Congress could do right now, it'd be something about regulating the ticketing fees in the industry.
Melissa Harris-Perry: What might this proposal mean for concertgoers like myself?
Makena: I think in the long run, if it goes into effect, tickets could be less expensive. We heard Senator Amy Klobuchar at the hearing last week saying, "You used to be able to work a job in high school, in college, on the weekends, and be able to go get a ticket for your favorite artist. Now if fees are almost as much as the ticket themselves, they've doubled in cost along with inflation."
I think it'd be great for both independent venues, musicians, and also just the average consumer to be able to spend more time doing something they love, doing something they can get out and have fun with. Especially after everyone being stuck inside for the pandemic for so many years. People are very eager to go see those artists that they missed out on seeing for so long.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Any advice for people looking to cop tickets to the Beyonce concert when the only avenue to purchase tickets runs through Ticketmaster?
Makena: Come early and come often, and maybe sit in that line and be aware of your refresh. I would not refresh. I would just let it sit there and pray to whatever higher power you believe in that you get them.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Might need all the gods.
Makena: Right.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Makena Kelly, politics reporter at The Verge. Thanks so much for joining us.
Makena: No, thank you so much.
Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
