‘The Great War’ of Taylor Swift Tickets

Lindsey Shrager

My reaction when Ticketmaster crashed Nov. 16, 2022, during online sales of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. In spite of glitches and long waits, over 2 million tickets were sold – “the most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day,” Ticketmaster reported.

Your armor is on and you’re ready to go into war. You pick what seats you want ahead of time and feel as prepared as you can be. Unfortunately, all your hopes and dreams disappear within seconds when you see 2,0000+ people in front of you in the queue. 

Then your worst nightmare happens. You lose the great war because Ticketmaster CRASHES. 

Pop icon Taylor Swift broke the record for the most tickets sold in a day (two million), but at what cost? 

Ticketmaster released a statement saying “over 3.5 million people pre-registered for TaylorSwiftTix Presale powered by Verified Fan, which is the largest registration in history.” 

A verified fan is a system when you have to register ahead of time and then the day before the tickets go on sale you will either get a presale code, be on a waitlist for a code, or be rejected. This is put in place to prevent bots or scalpers from buying up tickets.  Normally, only 40% of fans register and buy tickets. Ticketmaster gave out 1.5 million presale codes. 

Since when did going to a concert become similar to the college admissions process? 

Ticketmaster on Nov. 18 apologized to Swift and her “Swifties” for failing to prepare for the high demand for tickets.