Taylor Swift fans who descended upon Ticketmaster in hopes to snag presale tickets for the singer’s highly anticipated upcoming Eras tour on Tuesday have unfortunately been met with unexpected website crashes and long queues.
Tickets officially go on sale on Nov. 18, however those who signed up in advance for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program, or happened to be a Capital One cardholder, were able to get early access on Nov. 15. A lot of good that did diehard Swifties, though, as fans who were actually able to load the website were notified that the queue had been paused, presumably while the company sorts out its technical difficulties, with over 2,000 people in front of them in most cases.
Because far be it from Ticketmaster to have actually anticipated a deluge in fans, and, you know, prepared accordingly. Not only is Swift’s new album Midnights the best-selling album of the year, but this marks her first tour since 2018. Of course this was going to happen.
Unfortunately, this is only the latest in a long string of public relations woes for the company, which has been under fire for years for its shady price gouging practices and adding deceptive processing fees to online tickets. In fact, the outcry for transparency from Ticketmaster reached a fever pitch earlier this year when the company was featured in a deep dive on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver — with the general takeaway being that congress needs to get involved and regulate the ticket-selling industry as a whole.
So it should come as no small surprise that livid fans took to social media to blast Ticketmaster for letting fans down once again. Sure, they might be willing to pay a premium for Taylor Swift tickets, but dealing with incompetency on the company’s part just adds insult to injury.
Many fans blasted the website for technical difficulties, because where are all those tacked-on fees going, if not to ensure that the very website doesn’t crash? (The answer is sadly in the pockets of Ticketmaster executives.)
Others raged about the seemingly never-ending queue, which was still “temporarily” paused at the time of this writing. “Where is Ticketmaster headquarters we’re bout to January 6th y’all,” quipped one user.
And at least a handful of fans used the lyrics of Swift’s new single “Anti-Hero” to call out Ticketmaster as being the problem, which … well, point to the lie?
Well, with any luck, perhaps this latest kerfuffle will finally put Ticketmaster in the crosshairs of lawmakers who might finally do something about the company’s shady practices. Less in luck are Swifties who might attempt to score tickets once the tour officially opens up to the unwashed masses. If this is the presale, we can shudder to imagine what the sale is going to look like.