Beyond reach
If you’re a Taylor Swift fan who is trying to secure a ticket for her upcoming concert tour, you may be out of luck. Just two weeks ago, the presale tickets for Swift’s “Eras” tour opened which prompted her fans to rush to the website, Ticketmaster — the ticket sales and distribution behemoth.
However, after the exclusive presale for Capitol One card holders, the Ticketmaster website crashed, leaving thousands of fans frustrated. ‘Swifties’ felt they didn’t even have a chance to catch their favourite pop star live. It must be noted that the merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the leading concert promoter, in 2009 led to them monopolising the live-entertainment market.
Luckily, the United States government has stepped in. The US Department of Justice launched an investigation into whether Ticketmaster breached antitrust regulations.
Swift also released a statement on Instagram saying, “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Tickets were soon available on reselling websites such as StubHub. The price ranged from $400-$3000. Some were even priced at $28,000, according to Reuters. There is extremely higher-than-usual demand for tickets since this is Swift’s first concert tour since 2018. This year, she also became the first artist in history to occupy all top 10 spots on the US Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
On a high
This year, Thanksgiving — marked by turkey, pie, football, Black Friday and the Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan — was celebrated on November 24. According to WalletHub, Americans consume 4,500 calories on average on Thanksgiving and nearly 46 million turkeys are killed for the celebrations. However, the rising prices of most commodities owing to inflation made this Thanksgiving one of the most expensive ever.
The day before Thanksgiving is called “Green Wednesday” because of the high sale of marijuana. People usually buy large amounts of cannabis as a replacement for alcohol during Thanksgiving to weather the stressful period of family gatherings.
In fact, people have been gearing up for ‘danksgiving’ (‘Dank’ is slang for high-quality weed) because of the rise in consumption of cannabis with more and more states legalising it. It is not just limited to smoking. As weed is a good appetiser, cannabis-infused dishes are also quite common. The New York Times reported that the edibles company, Kiva, released a limited edition single-serve packet of powder for making cannabisinfused turkey gravy. Kiva’s pitch for the product says that under the gravy’s effects, “your household will be back in harmony in no time — each remembering that it’s all … truly … gravy.”
Politically charged
International sporting events are meant to be above geopolitics. But the ongoing football World Cup in Qatar is proving to be different. The USA faced off against its political rival, Iran, in the group stage and things got a little heated up.
Prior to the match, the US Soccer Federation changed Iran’s flag on its social media platforms to show solidarity with the protesters in Iran. The US Soccer stated that it was a one-time graphic meant to show “support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights”. Soon after, Iran called for the US to be kicked out of the tournament, citing violations of Fifa’s code of ethics. However, the US team has denied any wrongdoing.
In other news, an Iranian journalist slammed the American football captain, Tyler Adams, for mispronouncing Iran as ‘eye-ran’ — a mistake most Americans make. He immediately apologised. Adams — a Black American — was also asked how he could play for a country where racial discrimination still persists.
Wrong guests
A few weeks after announcing his bid for the 2024 presidential election, the former president, Donald Trump, was found having dinner at his Mara-Lago resort with the rapper, Kanye West, and a Holocaust-denying White nationalist, Nick Fuentes. Kanye West, or Ye, has recently been in the news for his anti-Semitic comments. It immediately caused a furore with Trump’s Jewish allies expressing their disapproval.
Many of Trump’s supporters, including the former vice-president, Mike Pence, also criticised him. Trump confirmed the dinner in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, but said it was Ye who showed up with Fuentes and that he knew nothing about it. Sources present at the dinner said that Trump became furious after Ye suggested that the former president be his running mate for 2024.
Footnote
One of the highlights of this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was the singer, Mariah Carey, performing her iconic song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. However, a TikTok video showed the artist singing in front of a teleprompter that displayed the lyrics. Despite being almost 30 years old, the Christmas classic has consistently dominated the holiday music charts year after year. According to a 2021 study by Forbes, Carey has earned more than $72 million in royalties from this one song alone.
