The Senate surprised everyone this past Tuesday as they started using Taylor Swift song lyrics at the Tickemaster hearing.
This hearing was held to discuss Ticketmaster, investigate if its a monopoly, and hopefully come up with some solutions to help improve the ticket system.
During the hearing, many of the senators decided to make it feel more light-hearted and added a comical twist to their discussion by using a Swift lyric when it deemed appropriate.
Some of the lyrical quotes included:
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that Ticketmaster should look in the mirror and say, “I’m the problem, it’s me,” Which is a lyric from “Anti-Hero”, one of Swift’s songs from her newest album, Midnights.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said, “I believe in capitalism, and to have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition. You can’t have too much consolidation — something that unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well.” This was in reference to lyrics from one of Swift’s more popular songs, “All Too Well”.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee mentioned multiple Swift lyrics. He used quotes from “You Belong With Me”, “Blank Space”, and “Karma.”
During the hearing, the panel heard testimonies and asked Joe Berchtold, CFO of Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster, questions regarding the mistakes that have been made.
Berchtold apologized to fans and said that a bot attack is the reason for the malfunctions that occurred during presale. On the day of presale, many bots jumped in line which caused the website to slow down and eventually crash.
“We need to do better, and we will,” Berchtold said.
This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened to Ticketmaster. In 2009, a Senate hearing was held due to Ticketmaster merging with Live Nation, and whether this merge should be separated.
After all of this, time will only tell if Ticketmaster has learned from their mistake.
