Taylor Swift Fans Drop Live Nation Class Action Suit Over Eras Tour Ticketing Fiasco

The lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against Live Nation over the chaotic ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has dropped the suit. 

The voluntary dismissal notice was submitted on behalf of Michelle Sterloff yesterday, Dec. 12. This comes months after both sides agreed to put the case on hold, with a court filing from August saying the two sides had “agreed to continue their ongoing settlement discussions through mediation.”

It’s unclear if any kind of settlement has been reached in the suit. The August filing said discussions would be completed “no later than Jan. 31, 2024.”

Lawyers for Sterloff, as well as reps for Live Nation, did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.

The lawsuit was filed just under a year ago following the Eras Tour ticketing debacle. The complaint alleged that Ticketmaster (which is owned by Live Nation) violated federal antitrust and unfair competition laws, and misled consumers in the sale of tickets for the tour.

“Ticketmaster intentionally and purposefully misled millions of fans into believing it would prevent bots and scalpers from participating in the presales,” that lawsuit claimed. “However, millions of fans were unable to purchase tickets during the TaylorSwiftTix Presale and the Capital One Presale, due in large part to unprecedented website traffic caused by Ticketmaster allowing 14 million unverified Ticketmaster users and a ‘staggering’ number of bots to participate in the presales.”

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At a March hearing, numerous Swifties showed up at the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles to air out their frustrations with the ticketing system. “The system is broken, it’s not working for fans,” one of the co-plaintiffs, Julie Barfuss, told Rolling Stone at the time. “And fans are the reason for the live experience, they need to do better.”

The Eras Tour ticketing debacle led to increased scrutiny on Live Nation and Ticketmaster. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on competition in the live music business took place in January, while the Department of Justice has also been investigating the company over its dominance in the business. Just last week, the Senate introduced the “Fans First Act” to address various issues in the ticketing system, such as hidden fees, a lack of clarity on whether a ticket is being sold by the primary seller or a third-party, and computer bots frequently utilized by scalpers.