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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Arwa Mahdawi

Swifties know: the Ticketmaster fiasco shows America has a monopoly problem

‘Move over Karl Marx, it looks like Taylor Swift just radicalized the masses.’
‘Move over Karl Marx, it looks like Taylor Swift just radicalized the masses.’ Photograph: Sascha Schuermann/AFP/Getty Images

Taylor Swift: accidental antitrust avenger?

Move over Karl Marx, it looks like Taylor Swift just radicalized the masses. Over the past few days there has been a lot of bad blood between Ticketmaster and enraged Swift fans over the disastrous rollout of tickets for the singer’s “Eras” tour. During the pre-sale process, which was only supposed to be open to around 1.5 million verified Swift fans, 14 million people, including bots, tried to get tickets. Pandemonium and heartbreak ensued. Things got even more heated on Thursday, the day before sales were meant to open to the general public, when Ticketmaster announced it was scrapping further sales due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand”. According to Ticketmaster, demand for Swift “could have filled 900 stadiums”.

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