Ticketmaster Live Updates: Panel Holds Hearing After Taylor Swift Debacle

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The hearing will explore the effects of Ticketmasters merger with Live Nation on competition.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday about the state of competition the ticketing industry, where Ticketmaster is the dominant force but has come under scrutiny since it botched the sale of tickets to Taylor Swifts latest tour.

The panel is likely to focus on whether Ticketmaster has such a dominant position in the market that it did not feel the need to spend money on the sort of technological innovations that might have handled the surge of demand for Swift tickets, an assertion the company denies. The sale, in November, had widespread issues and left millions of fans angry.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

Tough scrutiny, including from Washington, is nothing new for Ticketmaster, which in 2010 merged with Live Nation, the worlds largest concert company, to form a colossus with no equal in the multibillion-dollar live music business. The company put on more than 40,000 events around the world and sold 485 million tickets in 2019, the last year unaffected by the pandemic for which it has disclosed data. It owns or otherwise controls more than 300 venues and puts on major festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Governors Ball.