Tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour won’t go on sale to the general public on Friday, Ticketmaster said Thursday.
“Due to extraordinarily high demand on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” the company tweeted.
Ticketmaster provided a detailed explanation on its website. “We have the leading ticketing technology in the world – that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and clearly for Taylor’s on sale it wasn’t,” read the statement. "Even when a high demand on sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty handed.”
The company said based on the volume of traffic to its site, Swift would need to play over 900 stadium shows – or one every night for the next two-and-a-half years.
“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.”
Not surprisingly, fans are fuming.
“So everyone that got scammed during the presale and everyone that was waiting for the public general sale has literally no way of getting tickets unless they pay 10x the amount now on other websites? got it. y’all are a joke,” tweeted one.
Another wrote: “[Taylor Swift] better finally address this situation. It’s gone too far.”
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) November 17, 2022
* Due to our unwillingness to take meaningful steps to stop bots & scalpers from buying all of the tickets, we no longer have the inventory to meet the demand for fans. You are welcome to sell a kidney & purchase tickets from a reseller.*
— Samantha Rose (@_SamanthaRose_) November 17, 2022
Fixed it for you!
Why don’t you refund everyone, take the tickets back and just SELL THEM CORRECTLY ALL OVER AGAIN? I mean it’ll take time but better late than never.
— you’re on your own, Aziz. (@13swiftdelicate) November 17, 2022
Greg Maffei, chair of Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment, told CNBC that more than 2 millions tickets were sold during the presale on Tuesday. “This exceeded every expectation,” he said.
“The site was supposed to open up for 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans. We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots, which are not supposed to be there.”
Swift announced the U.S. leg of The Eras Tour on Nov. 1, describing her first tour since 2018 as “a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!).”
Tuesday’s presale was a debacle, according to fans who endured long waits and then out they were out of luck. Ticketmaster said Tuesday in statements shared via Twitter that it was experiencing “intermittent issues” with its website due to “historically unprecedented demand.”
The company postponed sales on the U.S. west coast by three hours as it tried to resolve the situation.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said Wednesday he has launched an investigation into Ticketmaster. “The ticket sale process did not go smoothly,” he said at a press conference, adding that no specific allegations of wrongdoing have been made. “It’s my job to ensure that the consumer protection laws and antitrust laws in Tennessee are being honoured.”
So far, there has been no comment from Swift or her reps.