A Senate subcommittee has subpoenaed Reside Nation/Ticketmaster, demanding paperwork as a part of an investigation into exorbitant ticket costs for Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and different live shows.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who chairs the Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote earlier this month to Reside Nation Leisure CEO Michael Rapino and stated that, because the investigation was launched in March, the corporate has “didn’t comply” with their requests.
Learn the letter to Rapino.
The investigation is trying into ticket pricing, charges and resale practices, amongst different issues. The subscommittee is also searching for information associated to Reside Nation/Ticketmaster‘s “failure to fight artificially inflated demand fueled by bots in a number of, high-profile incidents,” Blumenthal wrote in his letter.
In a press release, Blumenthal stated, “This subpoena calls for that the corporate promptly adjust to our request for paperwork important to grasp its enterprise practices. American customers deserve truthful ticket costs, with out hidden charges or predatory prices. And the American public deserves to know the way Ticketmaster’s unfair practices could also be enabled by its misuse of monopoly energy.”
A Reside Nation spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Reside Nation has been beneath an additional stage of scrutiny since final 12 months, when Ticketmaster’s web site crashed amid an overload of demand for Swift live performance tickets. Joe Berchtold, president and CFO, confronted a grilling by lawmakers of each events at a Senate Judiciary Committee listening to in January. However Berchtold stated that the artist units the value of the ticket and, generally, the venue controls the payment.
The subpoena additionally seeks annual monetary information associated to charges, the corporate’s suggestions for ticket pricing, enterprise methods concerning ticket pricing, secondary ticketing, communications regarding high-profile incidents in 2022, and buyer analysis and surveys concerning ticket pricing and charges, in keeping with a spokesperson for Blumenthal.
