Ticketmaster has formally apologized to Taylor Swift and her fans for the ticketing situation that left millions frustrated and angry this week. The company’s apology came in a statement issued late Friday, about half a day after Swift had expressed her anger over the fiasco in an intense post, describing herself as “angry” over an “unbearable” situation. ” and seeming to lay the blame for headline-making problems at the feet of Ticketmaster.
In its statement Friday afternoon, the company wrote: “We strive to make ticketing as easy as possible for fans, but this has not been the case for many people trying to purchase tickets for the tour by Taylor Swift ‘The Eras.’ First off, we want to apologize to Taylor and all her fans, especially those who had a terrible experience trying to buy tickets.”
Much of the lengthy statement linked in a tweet sent out by Ticketmaster around 11pm ET on Friday was identical to one the company had posted and then deleted on Thursday, but now with a newly tagged apology at the beginning. The previous day’s version of the since-revised “explanation” did not include any apologetic language, raising the ire of many fans before it was pulled from Ticketmaster’s website.
Even now, the statement focuses on statistics indicating that ticket demand was unpredictable, and touts the sale as a success story and a record, noting that while there were problems, “it sold 2 million tickets on Ticketmaster…on November 15th: the most tickets sold for an artist in a single day.”
That Ticketmaster would have to amend its previous defensive stance to include an apology was inevitable after Swift expressed her displeasure with the company on Friday morning. In a statement on her Instagram Stories, Swift wrote: “I’ve brought so many elements of my career home. I’ve done it SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans’ experience by doing it myself with my team, who cares as much about my fans as I do. It’s very difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and it’s excruciating to see them make mistakes without any recourse.”
While Swift didn’t name Ticketmaster in her statement, she did refer to a “they” that left no doubt who she was referring to. “There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how to improve this situation moving forward,” he wrote. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, several times, if they could attend to this type of demand and they assured us that they could. It’s really amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really bothers me that so many of them feel like they’ve had multiple bear attacks to get them.”
In the amended statement issued on Friday night, Ticketmaster still placed a lot of emphasis on the positive, arguing that the Verified Fan program, which adds extra steps to queuing for tickets, had been particularly successful at to prevent tickets from going to scalpers. “Less than 5% of tickets for the tour have been sold or released for resale on the secondary market,” the company noted. “Sales that don’t use the verified fan typically see 20-30% of the inventory end up in secondary markets.”
Ticketmaster’s statement, titled “Taylor Swift The Eras Tour Onsale Explained,” can be read in full here. (The earlier unapologetic version to Swift can still be seen in a Music Business Worldwide story here.)
In a repeat of its earlier language, Ticketmaster suggested that its ticket launch was not “perfect”, without going too far towards blame. “The biggest venues and artists turn to us because we have the world’s leading ticketing technology – that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and clearly for selling Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ it’s not was. But we’re always working to improve the ticketing experience. Especially for high-demand sales, which continue to test new limits. We’re working to strengthen our technology for the new bar that’s been set by the demand for Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras’ tour. Once that is over, if there are any next steps, updates will be shared accordingly.”
The company announced earlier this week that the general public sale for Swift’s tour was being canceled altogether, because there was so little inventory left after the verified fan and Capital Cardholder presale One sold out the vast majority of available tickets for the 52 US. stadium shows the singer has scheduled for next summer.
Ticketmaster also claimed it would be impossible to meet the demand for Swift tickets. “Based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor should be doing over 900 shows at the stadium (almost 20 times the number of shows she’s currently doing),” the company wrote in its statement. “This is a stadium show every night for the next 2.5 years.” The company didn’t say exactly what kind of site traffic it was measuring to arrive at the conclusion that Swift would need to sell out nearly a thousand back-to-back stadium shows to meet US demand.
Friday night was unusually busy for both Ticketmaster and Live Nation on the PR front. The two related companies (Live Nation at Ticketmaster’s parent company) are issuing near-simultaneous statements defending themselves amid heated controversies that have reached a boiling point this week, although Ticketmaster was in a position to belatedly apologize for the Swift mess.
Live Nation’s unapologetic late-afternoon statement was in response to reports that the Justice Department was investigating antitrust issues with the companies and came after a resulting drop in Live Nation’s stock nearly 8% in trading on Friday before closing at $66.21.
In its own separate statement defending Ticketmaster’s policies and practices, Live Nation wrote that there was nothing wrong with the company’s massive dominance, stating, “Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary market for ticket sales services. ‘tickets due to the wide gap between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system However, the market is becoming increasingly competitive, with rivals bidding aggressively for venues. That Ticketmaster remains the leader in this environment is a testament to the platform and those who operate it, not to any anti-competitive business practices. … We innovate and invest in our technology more than any other ticketing company, and we will continue to doing it.”
While there have been complaints that Ticketmaster has moved aggressively to host resale tickets on its own site, Live Nation wrote, “Secondary ticket sales are extremely competitive, with Ticketmaster competing with StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid and many others. It cannot be seriously argued that Ticketmaster has the kind of market position in selling secondary tickets that supports antitrust claims.”
Live Nation expressed a possibly surprising agreement with an idea often floated by upset fans, that the many additional fees that are tagged on each ticket sale should be combined into a single price seen by consumers. Live Nation “strongly supports comprehensive pricing so fans are not surprised by what tickets actually cost,” it said in the statement.
It remains to be seen whether Live Nation stock will be bullish next week or remain subject to, as Taylor Swift might say, “bear attacks.”