By Christian Maxey
To address the recent Taylor Swift tickets controversy involving major distributor Ticketmaster, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Tuesday, January 24. The purpose of the hearing was to look at “how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industries harms customers and artists alike.” When the ticket business was unable to fix issues that prevented millions of Swift fans from buying tickets or from receiving them even after they had done so, the concert sale was canceled in the middle of November. Swift weighed in, claiming it is agonizing for her to, “simply watch mistakes happen with no redress.” The collapse drove the followers into a tailspin. The meeting featured testimony from Joe Berchtold, the president and CFO of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment. He was anticipated to blame the issues on widespread bot activity brought on by the historically high demand for event tickets. As of writing this story, nothing new has come from the hearings, but Twitter is having a field day with the fact that people of power are quoting Taylor Swift lyrics. You can’t have too much consolidation — something that sadly for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift I will say, we know “All Too Well,” as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said in the first instance of Swift-inspired legislative language. Sen. Mike Lee’s chance came next. The Utah Republican, who serves as the subcommittee’s ranking member and made the joke about Klobuchar, the subcommittee’s chairwoman, using a phrase from Taylor Swift’s 2008 smash hit song “You Belong With Me.” “Since it had been a few months, I had hoped to obtain the gavel again, but she is once again cheer captain and I am sitting in the stands,” Lee said. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) chose a quote from one of Taylor Swift’s more recent singles that has been climbing the charts: “Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me.” “I have to throw out one more Taylor Swift phrase in honor of my daughter Eliza,” Lee remarked. “Karma is a soothing concept. Aren’t you jealous that it’s not the case for you?’”
