Ticketmaster says its website experienced “historically unprecedented demand” for tickets to the North American leg of Taylor Swift‘s 2023 ‘Eras’ tour.
Fans complained on social media of lengthy wait times and website outages when pre-sale tickets for Swift’s 52-date tour went on sale on Tuesday (November 15). As The Guardian reports, shortly after tickets went on sale, some were re-listed on sites such as StubHub for as much as $22,700 (£19,100) each.
Ticketmaster denied there were outages caused by the demand, telling CNN the “site is not down” and that “people are actively purchasing tickets”. The company’s support account on Twitter, however, said it was “aware fans may be experiencing intermittent issues with the site” and that Ticketmaster was “urgently working to resolve” those problems.
We are aware fans may be experiencing intermittent issues with the site and are urgently working to resolve.
— Ticketmaster Fan Support (@TMFanSupport) November 15, 2022
In a message shared to Ticketmaster’s social media, the ticketing company said “millions” had attempted to purchase tickets for Swift’s tour during the pre-sale, with “hundreds of thousands of tickets” sold.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 15, 2022
Ticketmaster advised fans waiting in line to “hang tight”, saying it was “working to get fans through as quickly as possible”. Pre-sales for tour dates in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Santa Clara and Seattle were pushed back five hours, from 10am PT to 3pm. Another pre-sale, for Capital One credit card holders, was moved to Wednesday (November 16). Tickets are set to go on sale to the general public this Friday (November 18).
Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour will mark her first since 2018. It will begin in March next year in Arizona and conclude with a string of Los Angeles shows in early August. Throughout the sprawling run of dates, she’ll be joined by alternating guests including Paramore, Beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers, Girl In Red, MUNA, Haim and more.
Swift recently confirmed that a UK tour in support of ‘Midnights’ will also be announced soon. Fans who pre-ordered the album will be able to access an exclusive pre-sale for tickets when they are on sale.
Swift’s latest album, ‘Midnights’, arrived on October 21. Less than 24 hours after it was released, the album broke streaming records on Spotify, Amazon and Apple Music, smashing Spotify’s record for the most-streamed album in a single day.
In a four-star review of ‘Midnights’, NME said that after Swift’s “foray into a different sonic world” on 2020 albums ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’, she “still shimmers” on her “return to pure pop”.