Senators Quote Taylor Swift During Live Nation & Ticketmaster Hearing

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Tuesday (Jan. 24) to analyze the ticketing industry following the chaotic handling of the Taylor Swift The Eras Tour ticket sale by Ticketmaster.

During the Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Richard Blumenthal-led hearing, titled “That’s The Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment,” a number of senators made references to the 11-time Grammy winner during their statements.

To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition,” Klobuchar said in her opening statement. “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.’”

Meanwhile, Blumenthal said, “Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror, and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me,” in reference to Swift’s eight-week Hot 100 chart topper “Anti-Hero,” off her recent album, Midnights. Senator Mike Lee also made a lyric reference to a Midnights track, ending his remarks with, “I have to throw out, in deference to my daughter Eliza, one more Taylor Swift quote: ‘Karma is a relaxing thought, aren’t you envious for you it’s not?’”

Following the Nov. 15 presale, Ticketmaster eventually canceled its general onsale for the remaining 170,000 tickets to Swift’s tour. In December, the company announced a new strategy to sell the passes over the course of four weeks and recently concluded that effort. At the time, the company said “historically unprecedented demand” caused the failure, but blamed bots then, too — saying that 14 million fans and more than 3 billion bots hit the site. That excuse did little to satisfy the more than 100,000 fans who were kicked out of line during the bot attack, and even Swift spoke out blaming the company. With many fans calling for Ticketmaster’s punishment and several even taking legal action against the company, Berchtold also plans to apologize directly to Swift and her followers.

See some of the Swift quotes during the hearing below.

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