Johnny Lin  0:00  
A December's afternoon in 2017. I was riding the bus home. Normally I'd be listening to music, maybe even taking a nap. But not on that day. I was obsessively refreshing the Ticketmaster website, waiting for the Taylor Swift concert on August 2018. To go on sale. The clock strikes on the hour, the website updates as expected, and I bought the ticket. Sounds like a pretty standard process, doesn't it? Well, as it turns out, that's not always the experience. Welcome to the headliner, a podcast where we talk about the latest news, live music in Toronto and everywhere else.

On November 1 2022, Taylor Swift announced her first concert tour in four years, fans were ecstatic. During that time, she has released four albums of brand new material, and two re-recorded albums, most of which have not been performed live. Not to mention the fact that she originally planned to go on tour in summer 2020 - we know how that went. Although she only announced the American dates many fans in Toronto couldn't wait anymore, it's for a chance to see her, including Tony Niu, a 23 year old finance analyst who calls himself a massive Swifty.

Tony Niu  1:34  
Oh, I was crying, screaming throwing up. I was like "I need to be at that tour?. It's been - because the last time she toured was in 2018. So that was four years ago. So I was losing my mind. I was like, I need to go.

Johnny Lin  1:48  
Did you try to get a pre sale?

Tony Niu  1:49  
I did. But the first time I tried it didn't work. And I didn't know I didn't know why. But I just think it's because a lot of people are trying to sign up at once. So I think that might have been why and I tried one more time, I think on the next day. And then it worked.

Johnny Lin  2:10  
So you did get a code?

Tony Niu  2:12  
No, I did not. I think it's it's only because I signed up too late.

Johnny Lin  2:17  
On November 15, fan who signed up for a pre sale of the tour opened up Ticketmaster. But instead of a smooth shopping experience, they had to wait several hours just to get in line. The website was constantly crashing. And for the lucky few that got in, the tickets they had selected were usually gone before they could check out.

Tony Niu  2:36  
It was actually kind of funny because because I didn't get the code right. And at the time, just watching everything one went down. I was like this is this is funny that they did not do their best to, to to accommodate that whole thing. And I was like, This is funny. And even the people that I know even the people they gotta call even the people who were in line for six hours. They did not.

Johnny Lin  3:04  
The Ticketmaster website crumbled under overwhelming traffic fence then found out presale tickets that were supposed to be reserved for them showed up a mess on scalper websites. They were outraged. They also found what happened. Surprising. Ticket Ticketmaster is by far the biggest ticket sales company in America. How could they have fumbled an important sale like this? However, for Peter Johnston, a music professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and an independent musician, it was expected.

Peter Johnston  3:39  
It was not a surprise that they were gouging people and and had the surge pricing and you know, people spending 1000s and 1000s of dollars for ticket that. That's not surprising to me. You know, I've always known that Ticketmaster has been transitioning towards the kind of monopoly on on entertainment venues, right. So when they merged with Live Nation, they became kind of the only game in town. And that was a problem in the 90s. Like way back, Pearl Jam, protested Ticketmaster, and their service fees and all that like they didn't want to book tours through Ticketmaster. And I think in the end, they ended up having to do it because there wasn't any other any other seller that could manage at scale. And now it's become even even even less competition. So like they bought up all the competition or they were bought by the competition Live Nation. Now there's only one game in town. So this is the logical result of a any kind of monopoly where they can do what they want. And if something goes wrong, it's there's nowhere else you can turn.

Johnny Lin  4:48  
Indeed, this is not the first time fans have been upset by the stranglehold Ticketmaster has over the entertainment market. Earlier this year, Bruce Springsteen tickets were being sold for as much as $5,000 apiece due to a policy that allows ticket prices to go way above face value according to demand. So how is Ticketmaster and other ticketing services affecting independent artists like Johnston himself?

Peter Johnston  5:13  
Well, not at all. I mean, I'm, I'm a bottom feeder. Like, I don't even sell tickets to my show. Like, you can't buy tickets in advance or anything like that. But yeah, I mean, this whole the way the music industry is now is really sort of hollowed out the kind of middle you get your big ticket master style events. And then you got you're just playing for the door. People like me, and I don't know what goes on in the middle of middle tier artists, if they're also having to work with Ticketmaster. Like, I'm just thinking about how smaller venues are, are dealing with this. They're still using online ticket services. Yeah, but I mean, as far as Ticketmaster goes, he has zero to do with my life.

Johnny Lin  5:58  
On November 18, Taylor issued the statement in which she acknowledged the events and directly confronted Ticketmaster for promising her they'd be able to handle the traffic from the sale. Most fans were happy if she took a stand against the company. But some felt it came a little too late.

Tony Niu  6:14  
I was not satisfied. But also, it's not her fault. I don't think she can be the one to solve it. When she's not the person who should be like she should not. It's not her job, right. But I also think is too late for her to put out a statement because she put out a statement, when last week, if I were her, I would probably put a put out something like maybe one day or two days after the whole thing went down.

Johnny Lin  6:45  
Personally, I see both sides of the story. There's nothing she could have done to avoid working with a monopoly. However, as one of the biggest pop stars in the world, she could have negotiated for terms that would make the experience less stressful ones that she had done in the past. In 2017. I also signed up for the pre sale program. And there was a several months long process to separate events from the bots, I then received a personalized link that would only work within a certain time slot in order to even out the traffic. None of these features that could have made the whole thing run significantly smoother was taken. The pushback towards Ticketmaster has been so strong, that it's unlikely they'll have tailless international dates up for sale anytime soon. But fans are still hopeful for Toronto show. And of course, better ticket sales practices.

Tony Niu  7:37  
I want only the people who have a presale code to wait in queue and I want there to be like a, a timeframe of when you can log in, like I want to be Be. Be like that, like I don't want everyone to sign in. I once went into it. I want it to be kind of a time like, like, let's say if I like I can log in at night, I can log in at night to let's say 10. So that is the only hour I can sign it. So I think that that's something that I want to see but I don't know if it is something that can be done.

Johnny Lin  8:19  
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to listen to this episode. And special thanks to my guests. This has been The Headliner. I'm Johnny Lin

Transcribed by https://otter.ai