(Billboard – Steve Knopper) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and many liberal Democrats have two things in common, and perhaps only two: They hate the way concert and sports ticket sales work — specifically the company selling most of them, Ticketmaster — and they love Taylor Swift. Or, at least, they acknowledge that ingratiating themselves to Swift’s fan army as she sells out stadiums in their states is an efficient way to build up constituent support.
Over the past couple of months, Cruz, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Massachusetts Sen. John Velis (D-Hampden and Hampshire) and others have presented a variety of bills intended to reform the ticket-selling business, invoking Swift and fans’ displeasure with Ticketmaster’s Eras Tour on-sale fiasco in November, when more than 100,000 fans were kicked out of the online sale queue. Following a Senate subcommittee hearing focused on Ticketmaster in January, politicians clearly see positioning themselves against the ticketing giant and attaching themselves to Swift’s millions of passionate fans as a winning combination. They’re even naming their bills after her.
“There’s a growing awareness of the problem, and the Taylor Swift concert debacle played a part in focusing a lot of attention on the issue,” Cruz tells Billboard, adding that his 12-year-old daughter recently attended an Eras Tour show.
That debacle, Ticketmaster declared at the time, was due to unprecedented levels of illegal bots attacking the online sale. But that claim did little to satisfy fans and politicians, who during a January Senate hearing instead chose to focus on monopolistic behavior by Ticketmaster and its owner, promoter Live Nation, often referencing Swift lyrics between swipes at the company. Since then, the rhetoric has changed slightly. While politicians continue to scrutinize the concert giant — Klobuchar says the Department of Justice is investigating Live Nation and Ticketmaster for possible violations of their 2010 consent decree — senators and congresspeople at federal and state levels are proposing solutions to potentially more manageable issues.
In Massachusetts, Velis and his co-sponsor, Rep. Dan Carey (D-Easthampton), have introduced what they nicknamed the “Taylor Swift bill,” which aims to abolish hidden ticket fees and require sellers such as Ticketmaster and SeatGeek to disclose service charges and costs upfront. A similar law already exists in New York state, and Live Nation actually supports the issue — including it in the company’s own proposed legislation outline. “Taylor Swift obviously sells out every concert,” Velis says, “but she’s also got this support ecosystem that lends itself to, ‘If you want to do something about this, why not use something that’s absolutely going to get the public’s attention?’”
But at a time when opposing Ticketmaster is good politics, one source in touring suggested politicians do not want to be seen aligning with the corporate giant. That political strategy may even be holding back legislation on other subjects where there’s popular consensus. Other bills, like the one Klobuchar and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced in April, limit exclusive deals with venues and therefore more directly target Ticketmaster.
Velis said he and Carey plan to meet with Ticketmaster executives in the coming weeks to discuss their bill. “The more you can firm up a piece of legislation to get rid of unintended consequences, you’re better off,” Velis says. “That being said, as it relates to just telling a consumer, ‘This is what you’re going to spend if you want to go to this concert’ — I can’t think of anything remotely close to approaching how someone can convince me that’s not a good idea.”