LYV - Ticketmaster exec to tell Senate panel of lessons learned in Swift ticket fiasco

Ticketmaster ( NYSE: LYV ) is set to tell a Senate committee that it "could have done better" in 2022's Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, but that it learned valuable lessons from it.

In mid-November, a set of problematic glitches plagued a massive ticket presale to Swift's first tour in five years and spurred Ticketmaster to call off the public ticket sale , citing record demand from "bots," or automated ticket-seeking software. Ticketmaster said its site was overwhelmed by 3.5B requests for tickets.

That led in short order to some uncomfortable antitrust attention for Ticketmaster parent Live Nation ( LYV ), including interest from the Justice Dept . and flak from lawmakers .

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on "Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment" Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET, with Joe Berchtold (President and CFO of Live Nation) set to appear, as well as SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger, among other witnesses. Committee Sen. Amy Klobuchar has urged that Ticketmaster and Live Nation be broken up if misconduct is discovered.

"In hindsight there are several things we could have done better – including staggering the sales over a longer period of time and doing a better job setting fan expectations for getting tickets," Berchtold says in written testimony to the committee, according to Reuters.

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