Ticketmaster halts Taylor Swift ticket sales in France
By Associated Press Reporters
Ticketmaster has abruptly halted ticket sales for six of Taylor Swift’s forthcoming shows in France.
The reason was not immediately clear, but posts on the ticket-seller’s French Twitter account cited a problem with a third-party provider.
Ticketmaster maintained that tickets to the American singer’s shows in France are still available and that it is “working to resolve this matter as soon as possible”.
The chaos comes after a spectacular breakdown last November when Ticketmaster’s site crashed during a pre-sale event for the star’s Eras stadium tour in the US and thousands of people lost tickets after waiting for hours in an online queue.
On Tuesday, after some fans reported issues with accessing Ticketmaster’s site, sales for Swift’s forthcoming shows in Paris and Lyon were abruptly postponed.
Ticketmaster directed the Associated Press to its Twitter statement.
The company added that any codes which were not used for ticket purchases on Tuesday will remain valid – and that affected fans “will be notified directly of the new on-sale date and time”.
The new times have yet to be specified.
When Ticketmaster’s website crashed last November, the company said it had been overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers in order to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites.
The company later issued an apology “to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets”.
Swift expressed frustration on behalf of fans, noting on Instagram that it was “excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse”.
Multiple politicians accused Ticketmaster of abusing its power as the dominant ticket-seller for consumers, and both federal and state authorities moved to investigate the fiasco.
Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010, is the world’s largest ticket-seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries.
Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the US are sold through the company, according to data in a federal lawsuit filed by consumers last year.
Outrage towards the Ticketmaster resurfaced on Tuesday after the postponing of France ticket sales.
Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh, who specialises in competition law, said in a statement: “Ticketmaster is a poorly run company and its bad practices come in part from its position as a monopolist in the space of concert ticket distribution.”
Swift is nearing the end of her 52-date US tour, which is set to conclude with shows in Los Angeles in early August.
Her international shows begin in Mexico City on August 24th. She is scheduled to do four Paris concerts in May 2024 and two shows in Lyon next June.
