Ticketmaster defends itself against chaos in Taylor Swift tour ticket sales: “We knew the bots would attack”

The promoter Live Nation, owner of the Ticketmaster ticket sales website, has admitted on Tuesday that your system failed in tour ticket sales”eras tour“, by Taylor Swift, but blamed cyber attacks for what happened and made it clear that they do not set prices or distribution.

“Major ticketing companies, including Ticketmaster, do not set ticket prices, decide how many go on sale or when, and set no service fees. Pricing and distribution strategies are set by the artists and their teams,” Live Nation Entertainment President Joe Berchtold said.

The manager has appeared in Washington before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain what happened. Ticketmaster announced the November 17 the cancellation of public ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s first tour in five years, which kicks off in March.

One day before that sale they saw each other blocked by demand extraordinarily high ticketing system and insufficient inventory to meet it.

The company had enabled a special page for fans to register to avoid automatic purchases, which didn’t stop the system from crashing after nearly 3.5 million people pre-registered, breaking Ticketmaster’s record.

“We knew that the ‘bots’ would attack the sale and we anticipated it accordingly. We received three times the amount of traffic from ‘bots’ than ever before and for the first time they went after our verified follower access code servers,” Berchtold said.

Although in this “attack” the Internet robots did not penetrate the company’s system or buy tickets, he added, it did force them to “slow down and even disrupt sales”which led to the “terrible experience” experienced by consumers at the time.

“As we said after the sale and I reiterate today, We apologize to the many disappointed fans. and to Mrs. Swift”, the also financial director of Live Nation pointed out before the Democratic senator Dick Durbin, president of the Judiciary Committee, and the rest of the legislators.

Berchtold has added that despite the fact that his company does what it can against those who take it against their systems and “steal” tickets intended for true followers, measures must be increased at the legislative level.

The BOTS Act of 2016 set a precedent stating illegal to use automated software in purchasing ticketsbut its prohibition is too much “limitedand there should be “clear and strong laws prohibiting the multitude of deceptive sales that are evident on secondary sites,” he said.

For lawmakers, who have seen Live Nation Entertainment’s dominance as a monopoly, the problem lies in a lack of competition. According to Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, Live Nation has 70% of the concert market. “And as the fans have verified, when a company does not satisfy their services there are consequences.”

Berchtold instead claimed that in 2009, a year before Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster, the latter company controlled more than 80% of that industry: “The US ticketing market has never been more competitive.”