Taylor Swift will resume her tour in 2023 after a break of almost five years. Demand was unavoidably high because she is arguably the biggest pop star in the world; in fact, it was so high that Ticketmaster was forced to halt its general sale. Here’s a look at the reasons why it’s generated so much debate.
There was always going to be a big demand for tickets once Taylor Swift announced that this would be her first tour in five years.
However, the general sale was canceled after allegations of service issues and hold-ups on the Ticketmaster website.
The majority of Swift’s 20-city, 52-date US leg of the tour’s ticket sales were handled by Ticketmaster, while SeatGeek did sell tickets for a few gigs in Texas and Arizona.
There have been many dissatisfied fans. But this story involves the US Senate now, so it’s not just angry Swifties.
Take a look at what transpired below.
Publication of Midnights
Back in August, Swift made plans for a brand-new album, titled Midnights, in which she would tell the tales of “13 sleepless nights” from her life.
The release of the album, her tenth, on October 21 broke streaming records. Spotify announced that the album had become the most-streamed album in a single day after users reported a sharp increase in outages that were reportedly brought on by the spike in demand.
Following the album’s release, 32-year-old Swift made music history by becoming the first performer to hold all ten of the top spots on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album’s lead single, Anti-Hero, also peaked at number one in the UK.
As the world was in various states of lockdown due to the pandemic, Midnights came out just five months after Swift’s forays into indie and folk, Folklore, and Evermore.
Since they hadn’t toured since 2018, it seemed inevitable that they would make an announcement.
In 2023, The Eras Tour will begin.
On November 1, Swift launched The Eras Tour, describing it as “a trip through the musical eras of my career (past & present!)” to fans.
The US leg of the tour will begin on March 18, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, with foreign performances to follow, according to the celebrity.
Swift also confirmed that a number of musicians, including the groups Paramore and Haim as well as the solo performer’s Phoebe Bridgers and Gracie Abrams, will be performing with her on the tour.
She also provided a verification link for a presale, which required fans to sign up in order to purchase tickets.
“Extraordinary high expectations”
The sale was canceled by Ticketmaster on November 17, the day before general admission tickets were scheduled to go on sale, citing “insufficient ticket inventory” to fulfill “extraordinarily high demands.”
The site had crashed two days prior to the presale, leaving many fans angry and unable to obtain tickets.
Fans were previously urged to exercise patience by the ticket seller on Twitter as “millions” attempted to get tickets during the presale, creating “historically enormous demand.”
After experiencing long wait times and website outages during the presales, Swift’s fans, also known as Swifties, criticized the company on social media. Some people claimed to have waited up to eight hours in online lines before realizing it was too late to buy tickets, which ranged in price from $49 (£41) to $449 (£377) each.
A steadily increasing number of bot attacks
The demand for tickets, according to a statement from Ticketmaster, was certainly even more than they had anticipated.
According to the business, a record 3.5 million people registered as verified fans.
The idea was to put 2 million people on a waiting list and invite 1.5 million of them to participate in the sale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 that Ticketmaster sold.
However, according to Ticketmaster, this strategy was jeopardized by “bot” attacks, or automated software requests, as well as demand from those who had not previously registered.
3.5 billion total system requests—or four times as many as at our previous peak—came from the staggering number of bot attacks and fans without invite codes, according to Ticketmaster.
Never before has a sale of a Verified Fan attracted so much attention or unwelcome volume.
What did Swift have to say?
Swift criticized Ticketmaster after the incident, claiming that she and her team had received assurances that they could manage the anticipated spike in demand.
She said in a statement posted on Instagram that it was “very difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and terrible for me to passively watch things happen with no remedy.”
“There are several reasons why it was so difficult for individuals to get tickets, and I’m working to determine how things can be made better going forward.
“I’m not going to excuse anyone because we repeatedly asked them whether they could handle this kind of demand and we were given their assurance that they could,” she said.
The celebrity said it was “really great” that 2.4 million fans had been able to get tickets, but it “really p* me off” that many of them felt like they had to survive many bear assaults to get them.
She promised to stage more performances for people who were disappointed.
The US Senate is involved because…
Fans and artists have long been disgruntled by Ticketmaster, which mostly controls the ticketing market, as a result of hidden fees, escalating prices, and the limited number of tickets available owing to presales.
And when Swift, possibly the largest pop singer in the world, is affected by these kinds of issues, it garners attention on a global scale. Therefore, politicians in the US are currently investigating Ticketmaster’s hegemony over the sector.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights’ chairwoman and ranking member, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee have announced plans for a hearing.
When Ticketmaster’s website let down thousands of customers trying to buy concert tickets, “the lack of competition in ticketing markets was brutally clear,” Ms. Klobuchar said.
Customers’ complaints about high prices, site issues, and cancellations demonstrate how Ticketmaster enjoys a monopoly on the market, which relieves it of the need to constantly innovate and advance.
“We all suffer the consequences when there is no competition to reward better services and fair prices.”
She later added on Twitter that the problem “goes way beyond Taylor Swift.”
At a later time, the hearing’s time and witnesses will be disclosed.
What is Ticketmaster’s opinion?
Swift’s concerts will draw a record number of fans, the business claims in a detailed explanation provided on its Ticketmaster Business website.
First of all, the statement added, “We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans, especially those who had a poor experience trying to acquire tickets.” Next, we feel obligated to share some facts with everyone to assist explain what transpired.
The company added that the verified fan registration was made to “filter out bots and identify actual persons” in order to help manage overwhelming demand.
It was reported that 3.5 million system requests, or four times the previous peak, set records for demand. The verified fan registration’s “predictability and reliability” were “disrupted” by the unprecedented traffic.
Swift would have to do a stadium performance every night for 2.5 years to satisfy demand.
The most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day were two million, according to Ticketmaster, who reported that despite the issues, almost 2.4 million tickets had been sold.
In contrast, sales without the verification process “typically see 20-30% of inventory end up on secondary markets,” with less than 5% of the tour’s tickets having been sold or listed for resale there.
For Swift’s tour, the business is currently “shoring up our tech for the new bar that has been set by demand.”
Additionally, it stated that even when online sales “from a tech viewpoint” operate “flawlessly,” there are frequently fans who are dissatisfied when they miss out.
“For instance: based on the volume of visitors to our site, Taylor would need to play over 900 stadium shows (nearly 20 times as many shows as she is doing); that is, a stadium show every night for the next 2.5 years.
Even if not everyone can afford to attend these performances, we realize there is room for improvement and are concentrating on that.
Swifties in the UK and other non-US nations are still awaiting information on international dates and are expecting that the procedure of purchasing tickets would be a little easier.
