President Donald Trump has penned an executive order and targeted ticket scalping. Joined by musician Kid Rock in the Oval Office, Trump stated that the order is intended to protect fans from having to “pay crazy prices” for tickets—potentially affecting fans of major artists like Taylor Swift via Newsweek.
Swift embarked on her record-breaking Eras Tour in 2023. The tour ultimately saw Swift play 149 shows across five continents and became the highest-grossing live music tour of all time.
Before the tour, back in early 2023 ticket pre-sales for the initial U.S. leg of the tour became chaotic as unprecedented numbers of fans tried to buy tickets, resulting in hours-long waiting times and website crashes. Ticketmaster ultimately canceled the general sale, due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
The ticket distribution company was criticized by fans. In a statement issued at the time, Swift said “There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward. I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” Ticketmaster later faced questions from Congress over the debacle.
The order aims to crack down on “exploitative ticket scalping,” and has introduced “commonsense reforms” to the way live entertainment events are priced and targets “unscrupulous middle men,” who impose “egregious fees.” In the order, Trump described fans being priced out in the current climate as “very unfortunate.”
The order directs Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that scalpers reselling tickets above face value comply with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations.
Trump signed the order and Kid Rock said that “Anyone who has bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years – no matter what your politics are – know that it’s a conundrum,” before describing this order as a “great first step.”
Multiple things went wrong in the Era’s Tour Pre-Sale Ticket debacle. Massive traffic overwhelmed Ticketmaster’s systems, bots and resellers reportedly scooped up a significant share of tickets, verified fan systems failed to adequately screen real users and lack of clear pricing and fee disclosure led to consumer frustration.
