Taylor Swift fans have won a key court victory allowing them to move forward with a blockbuster lawsuit against Ticketmaster.
The suit is one of a series brought over the botched pre-sale of Eras Tour tickets in November 2022.
A previous version of the complaint was dismissed in May, but now a California federal judge says the revised antitrust claims against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation are strong enough.
Citing the Department of Justice’s ongoing effort to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a group of 357 of Swift’s fans claim the companies’ monopolistic control over both ticketing and major concert venues has shut out all competition and allowed them to operate a shoddy sales platform.
The lawsuit says this led to a “massive disaster” when Ticketmaster crashed amid overwhelming traffic from bots and scalpers during the Eras Tour presale, depriving many fans of the chance to buy face-value tickets.
A lawyer for the Swift fans said in a statement to Billboard that they are “ecstatic to finally be moving towards our day in court”.
“Ticketmaster has spent the past two years trying every legal trick to have their case dismissed. The people of Los Angeles will decide the legality of Ticketmaster’s monopoly.”
Swift previously had some choice words for Ticketmaster when the presale imploded back in November 2022.
“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,” wrote Swift in an Instagram statement at the time.
“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.”
