On Tuesday, November 1st, 2022, Taylor Swift announced her Eras Tour, which would take her fans on a journey of her different musical eras. 

Just a few weeks later, Ticketmaster started the presale process for tickets to her different tour dates, creating a flurry of chaos in the swiftie world. For the presale, fans had to be verified by Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Program, which aims to weed out bots and “gives you the chance to book before the general release”. Ticketmaster said that 3.5 million people had registered as a verified fan, and about 1.5 million people were given an access code, while the other 2 million people were placed on a waitlist, leaving some fans very angry with no sliver of hope to watch Taylor.

But chaos ensued when, during the presale, a large number of bot attacks occurred and fans who were not verified attempted to enter the site. As a result, Ticketmaster had about 3.5 billion system requests, causing the queue to slow, which made it harder for the verified fans to purchase tickets. Ticketmaster issued a statement later saying that, “never has a Verified Fan sale had so much attention,” as if they were not the ones who issued presale codes in the first place.

After the presales, there was supposed to be a public sale for those who did not secure a presale code–however, Ticketmaster canceled this public sale because of an insufficient supply of tickets. This demonstrated Taylor Swift’s remarkable fan group, but also showed the difficulty of purchasing tickets for a music event. After the cancellation of the public sale, Swift’s fans who did not get tickets were extremely aggravated, especially when they saw tickets being sold on the secondary market for up to tens of thousands of dollars. Fans also expressed their frustration with Ticketmaster by complaining about technical difficulties and hours-long wait times. In addition, many fans said that they had cleared their schedules for Swift’s presale and some even waited six hours to try and get a ticket from the Ticketmaster website. By the time these fans got to the page where they could buy tickets, there were very few tickets available and none were near each other. 

Swifties did not end there–a group of 26 fans banded together and sued Ticketmaster for “unlawful conduct,” seeking about $2,500 for each fan, which can really add up. No one can doubt the power of Swifties, and Taylor herself even said that, “There’s really nothing that they cannot accomplish.”

All in all, it is clear to say that Taylor Swift is an extraordinary musician who has a large fan base. This Ticketmaster debacle further demonstrated her extreme popularity and success while also highlighting the shortcomings of Ticketmaster