Ticketmaster is facing a serious problem as a result of a hacking scandal involving its rival Songkick. The hacking scandal has resulted in a $10 million fine for the company. Meanwhile, the company is planning to integrate TikTok with its service. So what is the best solution for the company?
Ticketmaster Memo Reveals 10 Million Attempts to Purchase Adele Tickets
Adele’s recent US tour sold out in just four days. According to Ticketmaster, nearly 10 million attempts were made to purchase tickets. This figure includes two million attempts in New York City alone. That means 20 percent of potential ticket buyers tried to buy tickets to her concert.
The concert tour will begin on July 5 in St. Paul, MN. The demand was unprecedented and tickets are limited, so Ticketmaster did a good job selling them. However, many fans were left disappointed after a terrible ticket purchasing experience. While Adele’s popularity is a factor, it’s not the only reason for the failure of Ticketmaster’s site.
According to a Ticketmaster memo, fans had fought to purchase tickets for Adele’s North American tour. In one night alone, fans vied for more than 100,000 tickets at Madison Square Garden. As of Friday, there were only 750,000 tickets remaining.
The Adele concert is expected to be a big hit, and Ticketmaster expects demand to be extremely high. Adele has also confirmed two concerts in the UK’s Hyde Park next summer and in Las Vegas early next year. The concerts are part of Adele’s promotion for her album, “30,” which was released last month.
It’s no wonder Adele’s Madison Square Garden concert sold out in less than an hour. A Billboard report claims that she sold out her six shows within an hour. Fans may need to watch Adele’s “Hello” video on repeat.
The concert sold out so fast that there are no more tickets available on the main website of Ticketmaster. As a result, tickets for the Adele concert sold for as much as $37,000 on the secondary ticket market. Fans of the singer are poking fun at the price and calling out ticket resellers.
The ticketmaster 10m theverge memo also shows that the company is working to protect fans and put more tickets into their hands. In recent months, the company has been working to stop bots from purchasing tickets. Despite the massive demand, Ticketmaster’s technology allows the company to process millions of requests at once.
$10 Million Fine for Hacking Rival Songkick
A $10 million fine is expected to hit Ticketmaster in the coming days following a criminal investigation into how the company improperly hacked Songkick, a concert ticketing service that offers artist-direct presales. The investigation found that a Ticketmaster executive used stolen passwords to gain access to a rival firm’s systems. The company used the passwords to monitor draft ticketing web pages and access a password-protected app used by the artist to promote concerts.
The criminal case is a result of Ticketmaster employees unlawfully gaining access to rival Songkick’s systems and using those stolen passwords to steal business intelligence. The company will have to set up a compliance program and report to the U.S. attorney’s office every year for the next three years. It also faces charges of antitrust violations against its parent company Live Nation.
A former employee of Songkick was hired by Ticketmaster and sought to identify Songkick’s clients and dissuade them from doing business with Ticketmaster. The employee boasted in internal communications that he could “cut off” Songkick at the knees. The company went on to shut down its ticketing business in 2017 and sold off its other operations to Warner Music Group.
The investigation revealed that an employee of the company shared confidential and internal financial documents and was given a raise. The employee was later promoted to the position of director of client relations at Ticketmaster. The lawsuit was filed by a rival company called Songkick.
According to the investigation, Ticketmaster entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. In exchange, the company purchased Songkick’s service, and the employee was given a promotion and a pay raise. The employee pled guilty to the charges in October of this year.
