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The Orange County Register
The Orange County Register
Entertainment
Peter Larsen

Garth Brooks, industry pros blame resellers, not Ticketmaster, for problems

Garth Brooks Ticketmaster Irving Azoff Taylor Swift United States Bruce Springsteen James Dolan Capitol Hill Adele Beyoncé

ANAHEIM, Calif. — When the U.S. Senate held hearings last month on the Taylor Swift-Ticketmaster fiasco, the consensus on Capitol Hill was overwhelmingly Taylor Swift, good, Ticketmaster, bad.

But Tuesday, during the Pollstar Live! conference for the concert and live music industry in Beverly Hills, a different picture developed during a panel that included country star Garth Brooks, long a champion of reasonable prices and fair access to tickets for his fans.

Here it’s fair to say the view was Ticketmaster is benign, bordering on good. The secondary market resellers such as StubHub, SeatGeek and old-school scalpers are the baddies. And Taylor Swift – and Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé and Adele and any other artists whose demand for tickets outstrips their supply – are good, no matter the craziness that occurs when their tours go on sale.

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