It's Taylor Swift with the monopoly, not Ticketmaster

It was difficult for people to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Yes, really, the world’s biggest pop star sold out her shows - we’re all shocked, right? This is now leading to an insistence that it’s the monopolist selling the tickets which is the problem. We agree, it is. But the monopolist is Ms. Swift - only she can put on a Ms. Swift show - not Ticketmaster, the people who were selling the tickets:

But it also highlights the shortcomings of what critics say is a broken ticketing market that is creaking under the weight of high demand. Touts are able to buy up tickets and sell them on at exorbitant rates, while some concert-goers now face huge increases in ticket prices even if they go direct to the original seller.

Scrutiny is being levelled at Ticketmaster, which holds a dominant position in the market and has been branded a “monopoly” by its numerous critics.

As a bidding war kicks off for a rival retailer, is the ticketing market poised for a much-needed shake-up?

There’s absolutely nothing, nothing at all, in those complaints about how difficult it was to buy tickets other than that Ms. Swift has a monopoly upon being Ms. Swift.

Think on it. There were x million tickets on sale (apparently the tour grossed $1 billion and counting). There appeared to be more than x million who desired to see one of the shows. There’s an excess of demand over available supply.

Yes, it’s entirely true that the Swift organisation was, umm, swift to put on more shows where demand indicated. They tried to up supply to meet demand.

But what would change if there had been two organisations selling tickets to see the shows? Four, 100? Well, not much really. There was still that problem of x million plus desires being greater than the x million supply. Therefore shortages, rising prices, touts and all the rest.

Now, it could be that Ticketmaster has something of a monopoly, it could be that that’s a bad thing. We’re entirely willing to entertain such thoughts and an analysis of whether that’s all true. But it isn’t true that the Swift Tour is a proof of any of those contentions. Simply because the monopolist here isn’t Ticketmaster, it’s Ms. Swift.