Those with presale codes for Swift’s “Eras Tour” were invited to purchase tickets this week. Little did they know, this sale would be a multi-hour experience filled with lots of blood, sweat, and tears.
According to Ticketmaster, the demand for these tickets was ‘unprecedented,’ and there was no way to predict the madness that was to come. Many fans disagreed. The night of November 14th, those who were selected for presale codes were sent an email with the information needed to purchase tickets the next day. While millions of people did not receive a code, millions of people did.
Fans believed Ticketmaster knew how many people would be attending the presale, because they sent the codes.
Senior Georgia York had an awful experience with Ticketmaster and she shared, “I waited in the queue for seven hours just for there to be no tickets available.” Throughout the day, Ticketmaster was harshly criticized on Twitter by fans who wasted their day trying to get tickets, only to be left empty-handed.
Not only was the availability of the tickets an issue, but so was the price. Before the sale, Taylor released a statement saying that tickets would range from $49 to $899 depending on where you were located. However, Ticketmaster had a different plan. They use a system called “Dynamic Pricing,” where the pricing for tickets increases as the demand increases.
When fans finally made it through the queue, they were left with tickets in the 1000s, which many people were unable to afford. York said, “I think their prices are horrible, it is so clear that their verified fan system did not work.”
To add to the chaos and anger, Ticketmaster is known for the fees that are added to their purchases. Many fans believed that fees were ridiculous to add after they had spent over six hours dealing with their technical difficulties.
According to Bethy Squires from Vulture, “Ticketmasters scam fees now cost as much as 78% of a ticket” . Not to mention, StubHub has started reselling tickets for The Era’s Tour that were selling for $2,000 to $90,000. This is a result of the bots that Ticketmaster was supposedly preventing, getting ahold of tickets. York commented, “[Ticketmaster] had dynamic prices already but the addition of bots taking the majority of the tickets from real fans has been the worst.”
Unfortunately for those frustrated with Ticketmaster, there are really not that many other ticket sites to shop from. Ticketmaster has taken over more than 70% of other ticket sites. However, after Tuesday’s events, Democratic politicians have publicly spoken out against Ticketmaster, and reminded the world that it is a monopoly.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent out a tweet that read, “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should have never been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”
Many other politicians such as Bill Pascrell Jr. and Jerry Nadrelland shared their frustration with the site, and its potential for ruining live music if it becomes this difficult to obtain tickets.
Initially, Ticketmaster was supposed to have a chance to redeem themselves, Friday, November 18th, when the general sale opened, but they released a tweet stating that the general sale is canceled due to there being no tickets left. This unfortunate turn of events will be leaving even more Swifties upset and disappointed in the system that was supposed to help them get tickets. Ticketmaster has had a disastrous week, and fans are doing everything in their power to make them accountable for their mistakes. York believes that “Ticketmaster is a corrupt monopoly,” and that “they handled the situation in the worst way possible.”
There is an incredibly tense attitude towards Ticketmaster, as fans are still disappointed that they have failed to take accountability. York passionately stated, “I am furious with the whole situation, and how nothing has been done to fix it.”
