Taylor Swift’s Ticketmaster trouble
December 2, 2022
After her last tour in 2018, Taylor Swift had many fans who had been awaiting her next tour. Once Swift released her record-breaking album “Midnights,” fans were excited about her upcoming “Eras Tour,” which is set to begin in March 2023. Swift will not only be performing songs from “Midnights,” but also songs from her previous albums that she wasn’t able to perform due to the pandemic.
“I’m excited to see which ones she chooses from each album,” junior Anika Gulati said.
Ticket sales for the “Eras Tour” began on Nov. 15. While many fans are able to purchase tickets online using the website Ticketmaster, others were left empty-handed. Originally, Swift planned to sell the tickets in three stages: the presale, where fans with verified codes could purchase tickets, the CapitalOne sale, where certain CapitalOne cardholders could purchase tickets early, and the public sale, where all fans could purchase tickets.
However, fans experienced difficulties from the start. During the presale and the CapitalOne sale, fans began complaining about the long wait times they had to face. Additionally, Ticketmaster stopped functioning for many people.
“Ticketmaster crashed on me twice while I had tickets in my cart, and it kicked me out of the entire queue,” Gulati said.
Unfortunately, the issues kept getting worse. After the presale and the CapitalOne sale, Ticketmaster announced that it would cancel its general sale, upsetting thousands of fans.
“The experience was the worst,” Gulati said. “The entire experience could have been much better if Ticketmaster had prepared for the amount of people there would be.”
Ticketmaster underestimated the number of fans that would purchase tickets. Normally, around 40% of fans purchased tickets. However, the “Eras Tour” broke records when it sold two million tickets within the first day, creating a demand that Ticketmaster did not anticipate. Swift expressed her frustrations about the situation by releasing a statement on her Instagram account.
“It really [annoys] me that a lot of [people] feel like they went through several bear attacks to get [tickets],” Swift said.