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Swift Notes: how the Eras tour ticketing debacle reflects – and distorts – US industry reform

As US lawmakers investigate ticketing practices from antitrust investigations to ‘speculative’ sales, do these proposals prioritise consumers or corporations – and why do some bear Swift’s name?

I was surprised to find her in a recent newsletter from the wonderful songwriter Phil Elverum, AKA Mount Eerie(and previously the Microphones), about his frustrating attempts to be heard in a Washington State government hearing on a bill proposing regulation of the ticketing market. In the absence of strong regulation regarding both ownership and conduct, says Kevin Erickson, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Future of Music Coalition, bad practice has become standardised: Swift fans had to make it through the Ticketmaster gauntlet to even see the ticket prices, and had 90 seconds to decide whether to proceed or risk forgoing them to try to find cheaper ones, and were then hit with further opaque fees once they reached the checkout. Photograph: Sergione Infuso/Corbis/Getty ImagesFortunately for Elverum and his local community, the bill eventually died at the committee vote – but the incident shows the Whac-a-Mole-style efforts to create a more consumer and musician-friendly ticketing market, as well as the ways in which Swift’s example can both illuminate and obscure the issue, allowing lawmakers to misleadingly invoke her name to appear that they are addressing fans’ concerns.

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