The petition comes after AOC publicly criticised the ticketing platform earlier this week.
A petition has been launched by More Perfect Union to urge the Department of Justice to investigate and dismantle Ticketmaster, after technical difficulties on the site earlier this week has led to tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour being resold for up to $22,000.
Demand for Swift’s upcoming Eras tour led to millions of fans attempting to access the site at the same time, with some waiting up to 8 hours for presale tickets and the site crashing completely.
Earlier this week, AOC criticised the platform on Twitter, saying: “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”
Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.
Break them up.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 15, 2022
The company cited “historically unprecedented demand” for the website’s crash – encouraging users to continue queuing and rescheduling West Coast ticket sales in order to compensate for the high levels of demand.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation faced criticism last year after a number of congress members from the House of Democrats called for the Biden administration to investigate whether the merger classed the company as a monopoly, claiming that Live Nation Entertainment has partaken in “potentially unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practices”.
The new petition is aiming for an intervention from the Department of Justice to break up Ticketmaster. The website reads: “Live Nation-Ticketmaster owns more than 70 percent of the primary ticketing and live event venues market. They’ve routinely abused this market power to screw over concert-goers, sports fans, artists, venues, and other ticket companies. It’s time for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate their conduct and move to break them up.”
The organisers cite “increased ticket prices”, “anticompetitive behavior that bullies independent venues and artists” and “rip-off junk fees that can equate to 75% of a ticket’s value” alongside other reasons for their call for DOJ intervention.
The petition currently has over 35,000 signatures, with a goal of 50,000. You can view the petition here and watch a video from the union explaining its stance below.
