Taylor Swift‘s highly anticipated 2023 stadium jaunt – The Eras Tour – generated such incredible demand with its presale it set a record of 2 million tickets sold in one day, an event that’s become a nightmare for Ticketmaster.
Forcing the site to shut down sales due to ‘insufficient inventory,’ the fiasco left millions of Taylor fans (affectionately called #Swifties) in the cold – prompting many to take to social media to air out their grievances.
Even Swift herself issued a statement on the matter, saying Ticketmaster’s mishandling of the process ‘pisses her off.’
Although reps from the company initially offered a response to the hoopla on their site, that explanation has since been removed and replaced with an official statement that includes an apology to Taylor and the #Swifties.
Look inside to see it.
Ticketmaster released an updated public statement about the botched Verified Fan presale that left millions of fans without tickets.
“We strive to make ticket buying as easy as possible for fans, but that hasn’t been the case for many people trying to buy tickets for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour,” they wrote. “First, we want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets. Next, we feel we owe it to everyone to share some information to help explain what happened.”
“Historically, we’ve been able to manage huge volume coming into the site to shop for tickets, so those with Verified Fan codes have a smooth shopping process. However, this time the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests – 4x our previous peak,” they shared.
All-in-all, the event ticketing company says they’re working to ensure nothing like this happens again.
“The biggest venues and artists turn to us because we have the leading ticketing technology in the world – that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and clearly for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour onsale it wasn’t. But we’re always working to improve the ticket buying experience. Especially for high demand onsales, which continue to test new limits. We’re working to shore up our tech for the new bar that has been set by demand for the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour. Once we get through that, if there are any next steps, updates will be shared accordingly,” they said before later adding, “While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.”
At the time of this report Swift has not responded to Ticketmaster’s apology.
Your thoughts?
I truly believe most of the “bots” are from Ticketmaster themselves. Remember when the former Nike CEO’s son was exposed as a reseller. It’s become difficult to even get tickets for smaller scale shows. It’s ridiculous. Reselling $50 GA tickets for $150+ SMH
They should stop the option for reselling tickets
It seems like it’s worse than ever! I’m already expecting to catch a L for Renaissance Tour tickets
They won’t take away the resale option, because that’s how they collect additional fees. Without it, scalpers stand on the corner collecting all the money and then fans lodge complaints against the venue and ticketing service when they get cheated.
I agree. It’s giving a proper platform for people who don’t give a sh!t about the show and only want to make extra coins because they were lucky enough to place their order.