Photo illustration: Alex Parkin / The Verge
This special episode dives deep into Taylor Swift, Ticketmaster, and how a handful of policy changes in the 1980s led to one firm so thoroughly dominating the live events business in the United States that Congress held a hearing in 2023 because Taylor Swift fans were so upset about antitrust law. That sentence is wild. We’re going to unpack all of this with the help of some experts. Here we go.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): I’d now like to turn to the subject of today’s hearings. The ticketing and live entertainment markets lack competition, and they are dominated by a single entity, Live Nation.
