It’s safe to say that because of the disaster that was the Eras Tour presale, Swifties have some “Bad Blood” with Ticketmaster. Following a chaotic presale, and the cancellation of the public sale, multiple Taylor Swift fans are now suing the ticket seller over not getting tickets to the popstars first tour since 2018.
According to TMZ a couple dozen fans are suing Ticketmaster over the Eras Tour presale debacle. The article says that fans are taking action over the site allowing bots and scalpers into the site during the time others were trying to buy tickets. Over the course of the presale on November 15 fans had to wait hours to even get a chance to buy tickets – for context, my friend had to wait about 8 hours to secure tickets – and the majority of people were not able to purchase them by the time they got in.
TMZ reported that according to documents they obtained, the suit accuses Ticketmaster of “intentional deception” because the site controls the vast majority of ticket sales. The fans also alleged that Ticketmaster was “eager to allow” scalpers in.
It has been proven that Ticketmaster was not prepared for the sale, and the incredibly high demand. The site's incapability to handle the high demand was a major cause of the problems.
Ticketmaster did issue an apology for the sale. The company’s statement said there was historical demand for tickets, and even though they only issued 1.5 million presale codes, there were 3.5 billion system requests during the sale. They said the site was attacked by bots, and many fans who didn’t have presale codes also tried to get on the site. This made site traffic too high, and Ticketmaster was not able to handle everyone.
Taylor Swift also addressed the fiasco, making it clear that what happened “really pisses her off.” The popstar said in her Instagram statement:
I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.
Taylor Swift’s ticket promoter, AEG also called out Ticketmaster, saying that the ticket company has “exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the Eras tour.” This meant Swift and her team had to use the platform to sell the tickets. The statement claimed AEG "didn't have a choice," they had to use the ticket site.
Following two disastrous presales, Ticketmaster ended up canceling the public sale, making fans even more furious about the situation.
Along with this suit, fans are also going to extreme lengths to secure tickets to see Swift live. For example, a tattoo artist, and viral TikToker, offered to give anyone a free sleeve of tattoos if they gave her a ticket to the Eras tour. Meanwhile, others have reluctantly used resale sites to purchase tickets for exponentially higher prices.
So, with this new lawsuit and a federal investigation into Ticketmaster, it’s clear this is not an issue that people will just shake off.
While we wait to see what happens next with this Ticketmaster kerfuffle make sure to stay up to date on all of Taylor Swift’s upcoming projects, and if you want to watch her live (kind of) you can check out the Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour with a Netflix subscription.
