Senators grill Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift fiasco

[Initech]

16. Oh no I've been a concert goer for a long time now.

Ticketmaster was bad in the 90s and 00s, but I've never seen anything like the post-COVID era. Even like 2019 getting tickets was increasingly difficult because of the bots. And like I said in the previous reply, bot selling isn't limited to concert tickets anymore - all the major retailers allow it in some form. I spent the last few months attempting to acquire a graphics card for my PC and nearly tearing my hair out. I finally scored a 3060TI a couple of weeks ago and it was worth it.

But the 3rd party bot selling and reselling has been increasingly escalating for the last four years now. In post COVID era getting concert tickets has been incredibly difficult. I've tried to get tickets to shows like Dead & Co, Tool, Blink 182, The Weeknd at SoFi Stadium, and last week the Willie Nelson 90th birthday show at the Hollywood Bowl - only to see them sell out while I'm waiting in the damn queue, and then they "mysteriously" pop up on Stub Hub like mere minutes after being sold on Ticketmaster. Yeah something has got to be done. And I do agree that they probably fucked with the wrong fan base here. Hell hath no fury like a Swifty scorn.

Is there a solution to this? It's probably way more complicated than you see on the surface. I think putting consumer protections in place and basic reselling clauses and time limits would help. And I think the third party resellers like Stub Hub need to be held accountable to a certain extent.