The “Eras Tour” sparked a revolution among Taylor Swift fans all over the world, eager to score a ticket to Swift’s upcoming tour. Nov. 15 marked the debut of this fight for seats in stadiums across the United States. Excitement flooded through fans on Nov. 14 when pre-sale codes were sent out as early as 1:30 PM. Fans felt fearless with the security presale codes brought, but this feeling slowly died down as loyal fans began to lose hope while waiting behind millions of people in the Ticketmaster queue. 

Many fans even received an email from TaylorNation revealing they acquired a “boost” that would give them a better place in the queue on the day of the presale. Yet, in reality, numerous loyal fans with this boost waited hours to reach sold-out presale tickets for the show. The fans who did manage to snag tickets noticed high prices. Floor seats in Atlanta, GA. for Swift’s tour in April, have been listed for up to $35,438 — the same price as a potential downpayment for a house. 

Presale intended to provide devoted fans with a better chance of receiving tickets, as well as prevent people from reselling tickets for higher prices, however, this was proved otherwise. 

“I think that in theory, the presale idea is really good and has great intentions but I think that they need to prioritize fans’ status over who signed up at random times to get the presale code,” Miami Palmetto Senior High School sophomore and avid Swift fan Sydney Lambert said.  “They gave presale codes to too many people and also to the wrong people in my opinion. Ticketmaster has this monopoly over presale tickets, so the website is bound to crash when millions of people go on the same site. I really think it is the fact that it is a poorly organized company that is bound to crash because they don’t care about customer service, they care about making money.” 

General tickets were intended to cost no more than $449, and VIP tickets were not meant to exceed $899, but Ticketmaster’s “Official Platinum Seats” overcharged fans yet again, worsening their declining reputation. Fans were devastated by the numerous difficulties Ticketmaster caused, and in the end, many fans were not able to get tickets.

On Thursday, Nov. 17, Ticketmaster announced the cancellation of the long-anticipated general sale that would have taken place the following day. Countless dedicated fans who have grown up idolizing Swift did not receive tickets during the presale, and with the cancellation of the general sale, their chances of getting tickets remain very slim. 

Through all of this mayhem, Swift remained silent, without addressing any of the problems people continued to face. Fans continue to express their frustration with the company, and some have begun placing blame on Swift. Ticketmaster has had a multitude of issues with numerous other artists, which places emphasis on the consistency of problems Ticketmaster has had for many years. 

“I have done presales for other artists, and one of the main ones that come to mind is Olivia Rodrigo,” MPSH sophomore and avid Swift fan Peyton Byrd said, “It was insane, I did not end up getting tickets and the whole process was extremely stressful.”

On Friday, Nov. 18, around 12:00 p.m., Swift broke this silence with her first statement regarding Ticketmaster. In a brief Instagram story, she spoke out explaining how deeply she cares for her fans and vaguely stated that there were many reasons why the site had problems. She expressed the fact that she will not make excuses for anyone when she describes how her team asked Ticketmaster if they could handle such heavy demand, and in the end, they assured her that they could.