WASHINGTON—A U.S. Senate committee will hold a hearing on Jan. 24 on the lack of competition in the ticketing industry after Ticketmaster’s problems managing the sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is titled “That’s The Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment.” The committee did not disclose the witnesses.
In November, Ticketmaster canceled a planned ticket sale to the general public for Swift’s “Eras” tour, her first in five years, after more than 3.5 billion requests from fans, bots and scalpers overwhelmed its website.
“The issues within America’s ticketing industry were made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s new tour, but these problems are not new,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, who heads an antitrust subcommittee….