On November 15, 2022 Taylor Swift sold two million tickets for her “Eras” concert. She broke a record for most tickets sold in a day according to npr.org, but Ticketmaster just couldn’t handle the mad rush. The website is now facing intense scrutiny for the glitches and issues that caused thousands of people to miss out on the purchase of tickets. 

“I had lots of uncertainty about if I was going to get the tickets,” Lizzie Sol said. “It took me two days until I finally got them.”

Swift has not had a concert since 2018 and since then she has released five new albums. Swift’s fan base has significantly increased, along with being the most monthly listeners of Spotify for a female artist. 

The day the presales came out for her “Eras” concert, Ticketmaster was only supposed to let 1.5 million on the website, instead, there were 14 million. There were bots and scammers who took part in the crash of the website. Due to the millions of fans, it took customers hours to buy tickets. 

“It took me about seven and a half hours to buy my tickets,” history teacher Patrick Sullivan said. “I wouldn’t have imagined a presale to be so overwhelming.”

Sullivan spent the day trying to buy tickets for him and his two daughters. He described the process as frustrating, long, and overwhelming. Sullivan would wait for his turn in the queue and as soon as he got to the front, it would send him to the back of the line. Even though the process took ages, he ended up getting the tickets after all that time. 

“The wait was worth it,” Sullivan said, “but it is ridiculous that Ticketmaster has a complete monopoly on all ticket sales.” 

Ticketmaster is being investigated now by the Department of Justice, due to broken promises and a possible worldwide scam. The site has said only 15% of people experienced problems but a lot more seem to be complaining. The CEO of the company, Amy Kolbuchar, has come out multiple times addressing the problem stating concerns for “the competition in the ticket industry” and how the company is working on the issue. Not only did Kolbuchar make a statement but so did Swift. 

“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward.” Swift said, “And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs.”

Swift is very apologetic for the experience her fans received and hopes for the best from now on. Her message was very direct and lots of people saw it as a positive impact on the whole situation. Still, thousands of fans were furious but her writing softened the crowd.

“I think she said what needed to be said at that point.” Sol said, “the message was protecting herself in a way but also showed a lot of empathy for her fans.” 

Fans and Ticketmaster are trying to blame the situation on Swift, but the Department of Justice still has all fingers pointed toward Ticketmaster. The site will continue being investigated for the possible fraud and other mishaps that went down on Tuesday.

“Her music is pure nostalgia,” Sol said.” No matter how long it took me to get tickets, I know the concert will be worth it.”