Ticketmaster has once again coalesced under the weight of Taylor Swift’s ticket sales – this time in France.
As French fans on Tuesday prepare to buy tickets for six concerts in May and June 2024 on Swift’s Eras Tour – Four shows in Paris, two in Lyon – Ticketmaster’s website displayed a huge queue of customers ready to buy; One screenshot appears to be telling a fan that 1,023,504 Shoppers were in line ahead of them.
Coming soon, Ticketmaster announce Sales of those shows have been put on “pause”. The company gave no explanation, but said that a new time for the sale would be announced, and that “all tokens that have not already been used will remain valid.” But some fans’ social media posts appear to be showing technical errors on the Ticketmaster site, including a progression icon that “keeps spinning and spinning and spinning,” 1 fan – They speak English with an American accent, but with €762 worth of tickets in their cart – put it down.
Representatives for Ticketmaster and its parent company, concert giant Live Nation Entertainment, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The situation in France seemed like a frustrating repeat of the problems that plagued Swift’s Presale in North America in November, when an influx of millions of fans — and bots — flooded Ticketmaster’s systems, and fans reported issues like tickets for their shopping carts disappearing before that. can be purchased. As a result, Ticketmaster closed its sale to the public, though the company too He said She sold more than two million tickets for the tour in one day.
Issues like those with Swift’s November pre-show — plus long-running concerns about Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s market dominance — led to a Senate impeachment hearing in January. Senators from both parties emphatically called the company a monopoly and were skeptical of an executive’s explanation that Ticketmaster was unable to defend itself against a bot attack during Swift’s presale.
“This is unbelievable,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, said at the hearing. She added, “Why didn’t you develop an algorithm to determine what is a robot and what is a consumer?”
However, the demand for Swift tickets has been extraordinary, with Swift selling out arenas everywhere she plays and tickets going for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. She is set to complete the North American leg of her tour next month, and then play Latin America, Asia and Europe.
The Department of Justice separately conducted an antitrust investigation of Live Nation. The Department of Justice has not confirmed this investigation, but Live Nation CEO Michael Rapinoe has to speak about it publicly.