A Swift Disaster for Ticketmaster

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Wikimedia Commons/Grace Tucceri

Barely anyone can get their hands on tickets to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Why? Simple: Ticketmaster, the nation’s largest concert monopoly.

Grace Tucceri, Writer

Below is a dramatization of a historic event that took place over the course of three days. All events listed below are in Eastern Time and actually happened. 

11/15/22: …Ready For It?

Before 9:30 AM – Millions of Swifties (and sleazy resellers) flocked to their electronic devices. They made their way over to https://www.ticketmaster.com/, a website notorious for providing concert fans with the worst possible experience.

They recently faced intense backlash from the public following the release of Bruce Springsteen tickets; a “dynamic pricing” system drastically increased the cost of tickets as more people signed up for the presale. Springsteen’s fans were outraged, especially considering how nosebleed seats behind the stage start at over $400 in some cities.

However, ticket sales for “The Boss” did not mark the beginning of the end.

9:30 AM – The waiting rooms opened up… barely. Ticketmaster users reported laggy connections and had a hard time opening up their links

10:00 AM – As the tickets were about to go on sale, Ticketmaster crashed. Fans panicked. The world stopped for a moment. 

FHS junior Vivie Loukota recounts the moment her phone failed to move her forward in the sale.

“It crashed and burned!” she exclaims. “Mine didn’t even load. It just… crashed. There were probably too many people on the site.”

It crashed and burned! Mine didn’t even load. It just… crashed. There were probably too many people on the site.

— Vivie Loukota

Loukota was not entirely off; reports from Ticketmaster estimate as many as 14 million different accounts were on the site vying for tickets during the first day of the presale.

1:05 PM – Ticketmaster decided to issue a statement addressing the “historically unprecedented demand”. They also attempted to reassure fans that they would not be in the queue much longer since they were working hard to keep them moving.

Lauren Bartlett, a classmate of Vivie Loukota, begs to differ.

“I didn’t do [the tickets],” she notes, “but my mom’s friend did. She joined [the waiting room] at around 9:30. I don’t think we got tickets until after 3.”

Bartlett found herself in the same boat as many, but she was one of the lucky ones. Twitter users skyrocketed the tag #ticketmaster to many “For You” pages and fans expressed their frustration through TikTok videos.

2:00 PM – Ticketmaster decided to push the Capital One presale to 2:00 PM the following day in an attempt to abate the chaos. The worst was yet to come, though.

11/16/22: I Did Something Bad

Before 2:00 PM – Millions of Swifties (and those sleazy resellers yet again) returned to the Ticketmaster site in hopes of securing tickets through the Capital One presale.

2:00 PM – Surprise! Ticketmaster crashes once again due to a flood of users without Capital One cards infiltrating the queue. 

Carly Johnson-Pellegri, another FHS Junior, had a hard time comprehending the situation.

“My mom genuinely got in,” she says, “and it completely rejected [her code]. She tried again twice and got sent to the back of the queue both times”.

If Ticketmaster set their goal to providing fans with a stress-free ticket buying experience, they missed their shot two times in a row.

11/17/22: Don’t Blame Me

3:00 PM – Ticketmaster did the impossible… They canceled the public sale.

An official statement from Ticketmaster cancelled the general public sale less than 24 hours before the tickets were to be released.

That was the last straw. 

Much of Swift’s following expressed their immense frustration online by calling for her to take action. In addition to #ticketmaster, the phrase “READ THE ROOM” trended on Twitter as well.

An anonymous FHS student missed out on tickets both times during the Verified Fan and Capital One presales. 

“I’m insanely frustrated,” she explains. “Ticketmaster is awful, but Taylor is doing nothing, too!”

And what exactly did Ms. Swift do about all of this? 

She just dropped another Anti-Hero remix.