Ticketmaster really seems to have dropped the ball when it comes to the presale for tickets to Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour — her first tour since 2018’s Reputation — and nearly a week later, the company continues to address the thousands of angry fans who were unable to secure tickets. Even those who did get through apparently waited long hours in the queue, having to restart the process over and over due to Ticketmaster’s site crashing. Despite an apology from the company and a thorough explanation of what went down, Swifties remained inconsolable days after the brouhaha.
Ticketmaster Shares Information About The Taylor Swift Ticket Fiasco
Securing tickets to a Taylor Swift concert has never exactly been an easy feat. However, with such high anticipation for the Eras Tour — the pop star has released four albums and re-released two since her last tour — Ticketmaster may have underestimated exactly how much traffic the presale alone would drive to their platforms. The company issued an apology on social media, as well as a link to information detailing where things went wrong:
We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets. We feel we owe it to everyone to share some information to help explain what happened: https://t.co/1Gn4kRIvq8November 19, 2022
Ticketmaster explained that it used Verified Fan to theoretically weed out the bots and control the number of people on the site through use of a presale code. More than 3.5 million people reportedly registered for the presale, and 1.5 million were given a code to buy tickets on November 15. However, on the day of the presale, there were 3.5 billion system requests made via multiple bot attacks and fans who did not have a presale code. Ticketmaster said that is four times higher than their previous peak.
In the end, 2 million tickets were sold — thus causing the cancellation of the next day’s public sale — which was the most ever for an artist in a single day, Ticketmaster said. That didn’t seem to provide much consolation to the fans who felt they were made to jump through hoops, however.
In the comments section of Ticketmaster’s apology, Swifties remained confused and frustrated, especially since specific action was supposedly taken to keep bots and unverified buyers out. One fan tweeted:
so a few days ago u said no one, not even bots could join the queue w/out being verified but NOW ur saying that their was an overwhelming amount of bots & unverified fans that joined queue ???? the math ain’t mathing
Another shared a short video that showed the frustrating process of having to continually start the purchasing process over, which they apparently did for over eight hours before giving up:
Just a small clip of the 8+ hours i spent doing this. Started at 10 am ct, and at 930 pm i said this isnt worth it anymore. So much for verified fan presale huh? I will never use TicketMaster again. Not to mention “sorry you’re not logged in” errors OVER AND OVER pic.twitter.com/5XV5MtxTVFNovember 19, 2022
In Ticketmaster’s lengthy explanation, it said just issues were experienced in 15% of the site’s interactions, and one Swiftie questioned the whereabouts of the majority:
are the 85% of people who didn’t experience issues in the room with us right now
Ticketmaster also claimed that just 5% of the 2 million tickets sold had been posted for resale on secondary sites — a much lower percentage than the typical 20-30%. However, one fan posted a screenshot showing how out-of-hand the situation was on those sites:
Not buying it. Every single person had a terrible experience, not just 15%. And THIS? This is not normal or ok: pic.twitter.com/KzLV2AgaZTNovember 19, 2022
Taylor Swift herself has spoken out about the Ticketmaster mess, saying in a lengthy Instagram Story that her team had been reassured by Ticketmaster multiple times that they’d be able to handle the demand. For those who were unable to get tickets to the tour — which will explore all of the different eras of Swift’s music in all of the “dorky” categories — there’s probably nothing that can be said to make them feel better.
If you want to enjoy some Taylor Swift content from home, however, you can do so streaming with a Netflix subscription. The Miss Americana documentary that dropped some reveals about Swift is available on the streaming service, as is a taped version of her Reputation stadium tour from 2018. Also check out these other things Swifties have to look forward to.
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