Taylor Swift fans couldn’t buy tickets on Ticketmaster. NC AG not ready to shake it off

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has a message for Swifties: “You’re NOT on your own, kid.”

On Thursday, Ticketmaster announced it would cancel ticket sales on Friday to Taylor Swift’s upcoming 2023 Eras tour due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”

A few hours later, Stein’s office announced on Twitter that he’s investigating Ticketmaster for “allegedly violating consumers’ rights and antitrust laws for their cancellation of sales.”

Investigating consumer complaints is among the duties of the Attorney General in North Carolina.

Stein tweeted the message Thursday night as a play on one of Swift’s new songs, titled “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” from her latest album, “Midnights,” which was released last month.

Swift’s 10th studio album has broken sales records and topped global charts, and Eras is Swift’s first tour in several years.

Despite Ticketmaster’s efforts to prepare for Tuesday’s pre-sale with advance registration and special codes, the site went temporarily offline as fans flooded the site. The company tweeted on Tuesday, “There has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale.”

Swift weighed in Friday on Instagram, saying she is trying to figure out how to improve the situation.

“It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” she wrote.

Stein’s office is currently preparing to communicate with Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, after receiving several complaints through their Consumer Protection Division, Stein told The News & Observer Friday.

NC AG’s Ticketmaster investigation

Friday, Stein told The N&O he wants to make sure that Ticketmaster isn’t a monopoly or using its power to harm North Carolina consumers.

Swift has not scheduled any tour stops in North Carolina with some of the closest shows in Atlanta and Nashville.

“I want to make sure that Ticketmaster didn’t make (incorrect) representations of these ticket sales that they failed to honor,” Stein said in a phone interview. “The antitrust laws, which I also enforce, ensure that we have free and fair competition.”

The investigation doesn’t allege wrongdoing by Ticketmaster, but is carried out to ensure compliance with state laws, since Ticketmaster is liable to the laws of each state they do business in.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also said he was investigating the Ticketmaster debacle after receiving several complaints related to the site’s ticket presales for Swift’s tour.

Stein’s office will “be coordinating” with the Tennessee Attorney General, but may act independently, he said.

Record number of Verified Fans

Ticketmaster reported that a record 3.5 million people signed up for the Verified Fan program, used to avoid bots.

Of those, Ticketmaster said 1.5 million would be able to buy tickets for Swift’s 52 concerts in 20 cities across the country, according to a company statement. Two million people would be put on a wait list.

But the intense demand crashed the site.

“Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention – or uninvited volume,” Ticketmaster wrote.

Swift said her team asked Ticketmaster “multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”

“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” she wrote.

Most recently, North Carolina was one of 40 states whose Attorneys General investigated Google over privacy concerns. The state received $17.6 million through a settlement with Google that totaled to nearly $392 million, The N&O reported.

“We need a free market to succeed and competition is an essential element,” Stein said. “Because when you have competition, prices go down and quality goes up.”

As for his musical tastes, Stein said his devotion as a fan is mostly to Bruce Springsteen. But, he said, his 18-year-old daughter is an avowed Swifty who previously told him that the track “gold rush” on Swift’s 2020 album “evermore” is a good song.

“But I’ve yet to hear it,” he said.

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