Ticketmaster made some big fumbles last year, drawing the ire of fans—and the Senate.
The Hill reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee put Ticketmaster on notice following the announcement of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour.
“We’re watching, @Ticketmaster,” the committee’s official Twitter account wrote on Thursday, responding to a video on whether or not the company was ready for Beyoncé’s fans.
Ticketmaster mishandled two huge pre-sales last year, first with Taylor Swift and then with Bad Bunny. For Swift, fans with presale codes were unable to use them and instead, had to long wait times or the site wouldn’t load, leading to customers not being able to purchase tickets.
The fiasco prompted a Senate hearing in late January. “In the decade plus since the merger, Live Nation has consolidated its dominant position in the ticketing and live entertainment markets and the result is a competition-killing strategy that has left artists and fans paying the price,” Sen. Dick Durbin said.
For Bad Bunny, thousands of fans were unable to attend because of an extraordinary amount of fake tickets. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador then asked the rapper to perform a free show in Mexico City for the sake of Bunny’s fans.
“The access issues were a consequence of an unprecedented number of false tickets presented, which caused an extraordinary crowd and an intermittent operation of our system,” Ticketmaster wrote in a statement, following the Bad Bunny mishap. “This generated confusion and complicated admission to the stadium, with the regrettable consequence that some legitimate ticketholders were denied entrance.”
Bey’s newly announced Renaissance World Tour kicks off May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden and wraps Sept. 27 in New Orleans. Get more info here.
