In last week’s inaugural Swift Notes, I wrote about how in the past year Taylor Swift has been popping up in unexpected places, from crafting to debates about grammar. I was surprised to find her in a recent newsletter from the wonderful songwriter Phil Elverum, AKA Mount Eerie (and previously the Microphones), about his frustrating attempts to be heard in a Washington State government hearing on a bill proposing regulation of the ticketing market. (Sign up here – he writes really beautiful missives.)
Ticketing has been an emotive issue for artists and consumers in the wake of controversies around dynamic pricing – prices changing according to demand, a practice controversially used by Bruce Springsteen – and, of course, the chaotic US Eras tour sale through Ticketmaster in which all the tickets were sold in an advance presale for registered fans, leaving none for general sale. Swift rebuked the company for making “excruciating” mistakes and apologised to fans who felt they had endured “several bear attacks” to get their tickets. At the same time – albeit not as a direct response to the Eras debacle – the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that it would investigate Ticketmaster and the promoter and venue operator Live Nation – which merged in 2010, giving them control over a vast swath of the live music industry – for alleged antitrust practices. Despite 2016 legislation against ticket-scraping bots – which has only resulted in three prosecutions from the Federal Trade Commission – they continue to proliferate.
