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Taylor Swift ticketing fiasco enters the U.S. Senate

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Live Nation is in the firing line over its inability to stop scalper bots from purchasing Taylor Swift tickets

U.S. Senators have grilled the boss of Live Nation over the lack of transparency relating to concert tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour.

The entertainment company, which owns Ticketmaster is under fire after bots purchased tickets for Swift’s ‘Era Tour’ last year, in an attempt to resell them for a higher price.

Joe Berchtold is the chief financial officer of Live Nation, who apologised to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“We apologise to the fans, we apologise to Ms. Swift, we need to do better and we will do better.”

Senators criticised Live Nation’s fee structure and inability to deal with bots, which bulk buy tickets and resell them at inflated prices.

“There isn’t transparency when no one knows who sets the fees,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn called Live Nation’s bot problem “unbelievable”.

Ticketmaster reportedly occupies more than 70 per cent market share of primary ticket services for major U.S. concert venues.

“You ought to be able to get some good advice from people and figure it out,” Ms Blackburn said.

Ticketmaster cancelled sales of Swift’s tour to the public because of the “high demand”.

The entertainment giant reportedly sold over 2 million tickets, which is enough to fill 900 stadiums.

Taylor Swift said the situation was difficult, and called for accountability for music promoters.

“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.

“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” she said.

Costa is a news producer at ticker NEWS. He has previously worked as a regional journalist at the Southern Highlands Express newspaper. He also has several years' experience in the fire and emergency services sector, where he has worked with researchers, policymakers and local communities. He has also worked at the Seven Network during their Olympic Games coverage and in the ABC Melbourne newsroom. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts (Professional), with expertise in journalism, politics and international relations. His other interests include colonial legacies in the Pacific, counter-terrorism, aviation and travel.

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Linda Yaccarino’s first task – dealing with Elon Musk

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twitter advertising

In addition to lavish spending and hosting parties at luxury hotels, Linda Yaccarino has built a lifelong career in advertising.

You can compare this to Elon Musk, who sleeps on the couch of his friends homes.

As Twitter’s new CEO, Yaccarino replaces Musk as the company’s founder.

This new odd couple is the talk of Madison Avenue. Will they be able to work together?

This decision will determine the future of one of the most important social media companies in the world.

Since Musk took over Twitter in late October, many big-name advertisers have fled, and Yaccarino is tasked with regaining their trust.

Gwynne Shotwell, Musk’s No. 2, has long handled the day-to-day duties at SpaceX, freeing Musk up to focus on what he enjoys — like sending humans to Mars.

Yaccarino joins a company with 1,500 employees, many of them engineers and programmers who will still report to Musk as product development overseer.

Compared to her last job, Twitter’s advertising department is dramatically smaller. Over the past seven months, employees have endured rounds of layoffs and clients fleeing, partly due to Musk’s ownership changes, his content moderation changes, and his own controversial tweets.

The first major hurdle may be dealing with Musk. Perhaps Yaccarino will discover that a tightening economy, down-trodden ad market and shifting media landscape are nothing, compared to dealing with her now boss.

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Can new tech hires be sustained?

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As technology companies continue to lay off staff, Australian research shows the future may be brighter

Australia has a target of delivering 1.2 million critical tech workers by 2030.

However, the sector has been battered by changes and layoffs since the pandemic came to light.

Kate Pounder is the CEO of the Tech Council of Australia, who said the pandemic changed the playbook for many companies across the sector.

“There is some evidence that there was a boom in job creation and company formation during the pandemic.”

The Tech Council of Australia recently revealed an 8 per cent increase in tech jobs last year.

It means Australia’s tech workforce is around 935,000.

“When there’s change in the labour market, you see people using that to start a business,” Ms Pounder said.

Despite the rapid layoffs across many major technology companies, Ms Pounder said for every job lost over the past quarter, 20 have been created.

“We are finding that the ease of people moving into jobs is getting a little better.

“It’s still challenging to find people in Australia, particularly for people in specialised roles,” she said.

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Tech layoffs reach their highest point in over 20 years

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There have been over 130,000 layoffs across the technology sector in the last five months

 
The technology sector was billed as the most exciting industry to work in.

Big offices, big dreams, big money were all part of the parcel for many companies attracting staff.

As many organisations caught onto the momentum of the pandemic, the same energy has not been particularly met on the other side.

Thousands of workers have since been laid off as the good times stopped rolling.

In fact, the technology sector’s layoffs are the highest since the dotcom bubble burst 22 years ago.

The BT Group is one of the latest companies cutting staff.

Fifty-five thousand have lost their jobs as part of a corporate restructure.

CEO Philip Jansen will freeze his £1.1 million salary until he retires, according to reports from Sky News.

The ground is also shifting as artificial intelligence takes hold and the economy worsens.

BT Group said it is laying off 11,000 staff because of the increased capacity for artificial intelligence in the workplace.

At the same time, companies like Apple and Goldman Sachs are among those restricting or banning the use of tools like ChatGPT amid privacy or data concerns.

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