Live Nation Entertainment’s popular Concert Week promotion launched on Wednesday, but the Ticketmaster system has reportedly suffered significant issues as fans tried to score the discounted tickets. Social media was full of screenshots of the buggy experience many fans have faced during the promotion, which is one of the largest of the year for actually affordable tickets.
“I’ve been on Ticketmaster since 10am for the $25 Live Nation sale,” tweeted Allie Kay on X Wednesday morning. “The website crashed for 30 minutes straight, then put me in the slowest queue of all time. You’re seriously telling me they can have a monopoly over the entire concert industry and still not use servers that work.”
Ticketmaster was trending on X for much of the early period of the sale, as multiple complaints mounted over the crash-heavy experience for hopeful ticket buyers.
User Rob Toole shared screenshots of error screens he experienced, writing “a Typical @Live Nation @Ticketmaster buying experience despite being in the queue 20 mins early. They need to shutdown this monopoly”
Others chimed in with various levels of anger (and humor). The situation was reminiscent of many other high profile ticket sales meltdowns that have occurred in recent years, particularly the Taylor Swift Eras Tour meltdown in late 2022 that has led to such heightened scrutiny of the entertainment giant.
Since then, Live Nation has faced a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on its practices, lawsuits filed by shareholders, a renewed DOJ inquiry over its practices, and rumors that it will soon be sued by the regulator on anti-trust grounds – all while fans continued to fume over outrageous ticket pricing practices and the company posts record-shattering profit numbers each quarter.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have attempted to pin the blame for that debacle (and similar other technical outages during high profile sales) on so-called “bot” attacks. However, the ticketing giant has never presented meaningful proof of such claims, nor has it made a habit of reporting such attacks – outlawed since 2017 at the federal level – for enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission. It has instead attempted to spin the claims into its own legislative and lobbying agenda, which would largely make companies like Live Nation and AEG the regulators of the entire ticketing industry.
When you're in a disappointing people contest and your opponents are @Ticketmaster @LiveNation pic.twitter.com/J3HZKYccWG
— ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 🦆 (@essgee_316) May 8, 2024
To everyone trying to get $25 #Ticketmaster tickets, a message pic.twitter.com/lVNpKDSlx5
— 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕎𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕥 (@radiator9987) May 8, 2024
Guess @Ticketmaster @LiveNation aren't investing all those criminal fees into their ability to handle even a modicum of increased traffic. pic.twitter.com/a7qjfhrWu7
— 4.B💀nes (@matty_b0nes) May 8, 2024
Many who were able to weather the storm and get in to the systems also lamented the lack of actual ticket availability at the discounted price for many of the artists listed in the promotion when it was announced.
An annual promotion, Concert Week has become a fan favorite for offering discounted tickets to a large number of concerts across North America. This year, in celebration of its tenth anniversary, Concert Week was expanded to more than 20 countries across the globe, with $25 tickets at over 5,000 events.
It had a presale open to Rakuten and T-Mobile users that began on May 7, but the general opening a day later is where the bulk of the issues were felt. It is open through May 14.
A request for comment from both Ticketmaster and Live Nation regarding the cause for the technical issues has not received a response as of Wednesday morning.