TO UPDATE: The general public sale of Taylor Swift tickets scheduled to take place on Friday was canceled by Ticketmaster Thursday afternoon.
“Due to exceptionally high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet this demand, tomorrow’s public presale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” the company wrote on Twitter.
It remains unclear if the public sale will eventually be postponed or canceled altogether.
During a Tuesday presale, Swift fans were faced with overwhelming wait times and technical issues on Ticketmaster’s website as they attempted to make a purchase. Though the company tried to work quickly to resolve issues due to overwhelming ticket demand, some eager Swifties waited up to eight hours Tuesday to purchase tickets through Ticketmaster.
On Thursday, a Ticketmaster spokesperson told Variety the site’s technical issues were the result of an “amazing number of bot attacks, as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes, resulting in unprecedented traffic to our site.” The company claimed this resulted in “3.5 billion total system requests — four times our previous peak.”
ORIGINAL STORY: With ticket prices so high, some Taylor Swift fans will only see the artist in their own Wildest Dreams.
On Tuesday, hopeful American fans rushed to Live Nation’s Ticketmaster site to try to snag early-bird tickets to Swift’s The Eras Tour, but technical failures, long waits and limited availability left many in panic and disappointment.
By Wednesday, tickets for tens of thousands of dollars were being pushed onto resale sites like StubHub. Reuters reported that some early ticket holders were trying to sell their seats for as much as $28,000 (US$37,430).
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Original ticket prices ranged from US$49 (US$65) to US$449 (US$600).
On the upcoming tour, Swift, 32, will be doing 52 shows across the US. There are no Canadian dates for Swift’s upcoming tour, but many fans north of the border had planned to head south to catch a show — but maybe not at these prices.
Tuesday’s “Verified Fan” pre-sale (a system used by many well-known artists) offers certain fans special digital codes to purchase tickets ahead of a general, public sale. It is designed to discourage scalpers and bots from buying tickets, although the success of pre-selling from verified fans is unclear.
Ticketmaster released a statement claiming Tuesday’s presale prompted “historically unprecedented demand.” It said millions of people had queued to try and buy tickets.
A new round of Swift ticket pre-sales for Capital One credit card holders continued on Wednesday with fewer complaints on social media. Some fans said online queues had been waiting in excess of three hours, and many left empty-handed as tickets sold out.
Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation in 2010, resulting in control of more than 70 percent of the primary ticketing and live venues market.
On Wednesday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said he would investigate customer complaints about Ticketmaster.
Although Ticketmaster has not been accused of wrongdoing, Skrmetti said at a press conference that a lack of competition could lead to higher ticket prices and poor customer service, Bloomberg reported.
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The Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also criticized the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2010. On Twitter, she claimed Ticketmaster was “a monopoly.” She said the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger “should never have been approved.”
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal also tweeted about the Swift ticket snafu, writing that it “is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger is hurting consumers by creating a near monopoly.”
On social media, Swift’s fans have been vocal in scolding Ticketmaster and the resale market, claiming greedy companies and opportunistic scalpers are preying on the artist’s dedicated fan base.
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Swift has released her latest album, midnight, in October. The US tour is scheduled to begin in March 2023 and end in August.
— With files from Reuters
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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