Paramore’s Hayley Williams Tells Dublin Crowd That Ticketmaster ‘Needs to Get Their S–t Together’

Paramore‘s Hayley Williams became the latest major artist to lash out at ticketing giant Ticketmaster last week when the singer called the company out during the kick-off of the group’s UK/Ireland tour in Dublin on Thursday.

“I wanna say one more time how special it is that you’ve all made it tonight. We don’t take it lightly, we know, honestly, especially now, it’s a huge sacrifice to come to a show because Ticketmaster need to get their s–t together,” she said according to NME. “We’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves too because we were like, ‘People are spending money that they don’t have to come and hang out with us and we better give them something that’s worth that’. We just love you so much.”

While Williams did not specifically call Ticketmaster out on a specific issue, the company has drawn scorn for the troubled roll-out of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in late 2022 — which was followed by Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold’s grilling by a Senate Judiciary Committee in January — as well as the messy handling of ticketing for The Cure’s upcoming North American tour, during which some fans complained their added fees sometimes exceeded the face value of the tickets.

Williams’ complaint came after The Cure’s Robert Smith went on a dayslong Twitter rant against TM that resulted in a rare give-back of extra fees to the band’s fans. Neil Young also recently spoke out against the company, writing in late March that “concert touring is broken,” in a letter that served as an addendum to Smith’s battle.

“It’s over. The old days are gone,” Young wrote in a post that claimed that TM fees are “at 30%.” Young said he’d gotten letters from fans blaming him for $3,000 tickets for a benefit he’s doing. “That money does not go to me or the benefit,” he said at the time. “Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers.”