Justice Department investigates Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift fiasco

Ticketmaster is the reason for the teardrops on a lot of Swifties’ guitars.

The Justice Department is investigating Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, for antitrust violations following the all-out chaos fans experienced while attempting to buy tickets for the Taylor Swift eras tour.

What went wrong?
Fans experienced system crashes, long wait times, the site not accepting verified pre-sale codes, and now, bots and scammers reselling the tickets for over $12 grand a pop. Ticketmaster was even forced to cancel the general sale for tickets after the tour sold out during the Verified Fan early access period. 

Who’s to blame?
Ticketmaster blamed the overwhelming demand for tickets for causing the snafu, but Taylor Swift’s statement on her Instagram story alludes to a different side of the story. 

She wrote, “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”

Though the Taylor Swift tour hurtled Ticketmaster into the headlines, the Justice Department has apparently been contacting music venues to investigate Live Nation’s practices for a few months now. The main focus of the investigation is whether or not the company has a monopoly in the industry.