Live Nation’s President and CFO Joe Berchtold apologized to Taylor Swift and her fans for the Eras Tour ticketing debacle during a Senate Judiciary Committee held in a hearing on January 24th.
In her opening statement, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said, “As million of Taylor Swift fans found out last fall there are few consequences for failing to deliver the services.”
She added, “To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition You can’t have too much consolidation — something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know ‘all too well.'”
In November 2022, Ticketmaster repeatedly crashed during the Eras Tour presale when 14 million people hit up the site when it was only supposed to be open to 1.5 million verified Swifties.
Berchol blamed scalpers and commented, “We apologize to the fans. We apologize to Ms. Swift. We need to do better and we will do better.”
During the hearing, Klobuchar wasn't the only senator who quoted Swift’s lyrics when addressing the CFO.
As documented by Mother Jones, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. “May I suggest, respectfully, that Ticketmaster look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem. It’s me,'” he added, citing lyrics to Swift’s 2022 hit, “Anti-Hero.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also chimed in with a quote from Midnights, saying, “Karma’s a relaxing thought, Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not.”