Even Hard to believe, this curious duo went viral in the last few hours at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. After the controversy with the tickets for the singer’s tour, which led to a general discontent of all the “swifties”, the CEO of Ticketmaster had to give explanations in the Upper House. It was at that hearing that John Kennedy starred in one of the exchanges with the most repercussions on social networks.
In November 2022, the popular singer-songwriter announced her first tour in five years, The Eras. Tour, which included 20 cities and 52 concerts throughout the United States. Ticket sales were handled by Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster, which apparently didn’t handle the sales process very well.
At the time, millions upon millions of fans tried to buy tickets, but many were inexplicably kicked off the website and the strong demand caused Ticketmaster to cancel the sale. According to the company, the origin of all the problems were the bots used by resellers.
“The staggering number of attacks by botsas well as from fans who did not have invite codes, generated unprecedented traffic to our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests, 4 times our previous peak.
Frustrated, Swift herself assured that “she was not going to make excuses for anyone”, since she had been assured that the company would be able to handle the demand for tickets. The scandal was such that the Senate Judiciary Committee grabbed the gauntlet and launched an investigation against Ticketmaster.
As reported, the company controls more than 70% of the market share of the primary ticketing services for the main concerts in the United States and does not have the best reputation among its competitors.
“Innovation in live event ticketing has been held back because Live Nation Entertainment Inc. controls the world’s most popular artists, ticketing systems and even many of the venues. This power over the entire live entertainment industry allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over the primary ticketing market,” said Jack Groetzinger, co-founder and CEO of SeatGeek.
More! Viral: Senator Kennedy Leaves Biden’s Judiciary Nominee Mute With Simple Questions About The Constitution
Kennedy and another viral moment in the Senate, this time talking about Taylor Swift
When it was his turn, the Louisiana senator went straight to the bone: “I’m not against the great per se, I’m against the silly. The way his company handled ticket sales for Miss Swift was a debacle […] If you want to keep prices low, cut out the middlemen. If you want to remove the bots, make it non-tradeable or tradeable for price only.”
He then asked Ticketmaster executives if “do you support non-transferability or not?” After a positive response, Kennedy celebrated that much of the problem had just been resolved.
His intervention did not end here. The legislator provided another series of recommendations to protect fans and encouraged popular artists to be in favor of the non-transferability of tickets. “If you care about the consumer, you are going to keep the price low. If you care about the consumer, limit the price. Eliminate the robots. Cut out the middlemen. If you really care about the consumer, give them a break,” Kennedy continued.
“Not every kid can afford $500 to go see Taylor Swift. And I would like to see Ms. Swift or Mr. Springsteen or some of the other great artists step up and say that we are going to support non-transferability and we are going to limit the fees that are added here,” she added.
For the senator, these actions would ensure that resellers do not obtain an “obscene” benefit and he once again stressed the urgency of the reforms. “If we do it now we’ve done something now, we’ve gone beyond how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pen and whether the FTC should be involved, and we know full well that’s going to happen sometime in the next century. And if something is a technical violation of antitrust law, we have to go to litigation. Well, my work here is done,” Kennedy concluded.
His exchange with company executives accumulates more than half a million views in just two days. Also enjoying his viral moment was Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). At the beginning of his speech, he celebrated that the problem is common for Republicans and Democrats. Later, he was encouraged to quote Taylor Swift herself. “May I respectfully suggest that Ticketmaster look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem. It’s me,’” he slipped in reference to the song. anti hero.
Joaquín Núñez is a fan of Racing Club de Avellaneda and has a degree in journalistic communication from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He specializes in the international scene and in North American politics // Joaquín Núñez is a fan of Avellaneda’s Racing Club and has a degree in journalistic communication from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He specializes in the international scene and American politics.