Ticketmaster announced they have canceled the public sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s “The Eras” tour. Ticketmaster sent out a tweet explaining that due to high demand on the ticketing system and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet the demand, the public sale for Taylor Swift has been canceled.
A heartbreaking presale rush for tickets left many fans frustrated with Ticketmaster. Those seeking tickets were dealt hours-long waits and a website that often crashed, sending them back to the long virtual queue with thousands ahead of them. Taylor Swift just added 17 dates to the U.S. tour, which will kick off in March in Arizona and ends in August in Los Angeles. This highly anticipated tour will feature 52 concerts.
Swift’s team has not responded to the announcement by Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster said the presale broke records and admitted that it hadn’t offered a smooth ticket-buying experience. Ticketmaster released a statement:
“The biggest venues and artists turn to us because 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. But we’re always working to improve the ticket-buying experience,” Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for the Taylor’s Verified Fan sale. Normally, 40% of fans invited to purchase tickets actually do so, and normally it’s only an average of three tickets.
Ticketmaster Verified Fan system failed
The company’s Verified Fan process restricts the number of people looking to buy tickets, but it didn’t work this time. Despite the presale fiasco, Ticketmaster said that over 2 million tickets were sold on Tuesday. Fans took to social media to air their dismay after learning the public sale had been canceled.
The issues with Ticketmaster has led to growing scrutiny of Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Amy Klobuchar among others has written a letter to CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, Michael Rapino saying this fiasco expressed “serious concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its negative impact on consumers.” Klobuchar asked Rapino to answer several questions. The ticket fiasco also drew the attention of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti who is moving ahead with an investigation into Ticketmaster.
