Klobuchar weighs in on Taylor Swift ticket fiasco
November 18, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KFGO/WCCO) – As Taylor Swift fans around the country waited in long online cues on the ticket-selling website Ticketmaster, many were left hanging as the site announced it would be canceling tomorrow’s general public sale because of “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
The news of the cancellation was shared on Twitter.
Several politicians have spoken out against Ticketmaster in recent weeks, calling for a federal investigation into the site.
“This is unbelievable because LiveNation and Ticketmaster merged, and I expressed a lot of concerns about it at the time when they were allowed to merge way back in 2010,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (pictured) said.
The senator was against the merger at the time because it erased all of the competition from the market.
“There just isn’t anyone competing with them, and that means really bad stuff from the public when it comes to competition because you don’t have someone else you can really honestly go to,” Klobuchar said.
The new problem with Ticketmaster, according to Klobuchar, is that they have begun buying venues, which now puts them at odds with independent venues, like the iconic First Avenue in Minneapolis.
“You basically created a giant. That doesn’t mean we don’t need their services, that we aren’t glad we have their services,” Klobuchar said. “But at some point, when you don’t have competition you have no one else to go to, and then problems ensue. That’s why I’m going to have a hearing about this.”
Currently, the senator said Ticketmaster is the subject of review by several investigations when it comes to “competition issues.”
Klobuchar says that she has a bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), that looks to discourage big mergers and instead help rejuvenate capitalism.
“The reason this is so bipartisan, is that Republicans and Democrats believe in capitalism. I do,” Klobuchar said. “And that’s why you can’t have one company.”