Ahead of the sales of the highly sought-after 'Renaissance' tour tickets, the committee sends a not-so-subtle warning to Ticketmaster following Taylor Swift's 'Era Tour' debacle.
- Feb 3, 2023
AceShowbiz - Senate Judiciary Committee has publicly reminded Ticketmaster that it's keeping an eye on the company ahead of the sale of Beyonce Knowles' highly-anticipated tour tickets. The committee has warned Ticketmaster following Taylor Swift's "Era Tour" debacle.
On Thursday, February 2, Senate Judiciary Committee's official Twitter account sent a dig at Ticketmaster after Bey officially announced her upcoming "Renaissance World Tour". "We're watching, @Ticketmaster," it tweeted in response to an article about the tour announcement.
Ticketmaster has come under scrutiny after Taylor ticket tour fiasco in November 2022. The system meltdown during pre-sale resulted in thousands of Swifties being unable to purchase tickets. The ticket sales and distribution company later canceled general sale tickets.
Breaking her silence on the debacle, Taylor wrote in an Instagram message to fans, "It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse. 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 this situation can be improved moving forward."
"I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could," she added. "It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really p***** me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them."
In December, Taylor fans filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, accusing the company of "price fixing" and "fraud." The lawsuit claims that because Ticketmaster is involved in both the primary ticket sale market as well as the secondary market, they were "eager to allow" scalpers into the presale event.
Meanwhile, Beyonce announced on Wednesday her "Renaissance World Tour" tour dates, which will kick off in March. The R&B diva later revealed on Thursday a slew of additional shows due to high demand.
They include second shows in Toronto on July 9, Chicago on July 23, East Rutherford on July 30, Washington, DC on August 6, Atlanta on August 12, Los Angeles on September 3 and Houston on September 24.
According to a press release from Live Nation, fan demand has already exceeded the number of available tickets by more than 800% based on current registration numbers. However, even with these added dates, "it is still expected that the majority of interested fans will not be able to get tickets because demand drastically exceeds supply."
