A US Senate antitrust panel will hold a hearing regarding the lack of competition in the country’s ticketing industry following the recent fiasco regarding Ticketmaster in their handling of Taylor Swift tickets.
Notable congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has criticized the company: “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with Live Nation should never have been approved, and they need to be reined in,” she tweeted. “Break them up.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, who will chair the panel, and senator Mike Lee announced that Senate hearing would move forward.
“The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve,” Klobuchar said, according to The Guardian. “We will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike.”
“Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system,” the company said.
