Taylor Swift and Ticketmaster comment on last week’s ticketing dramas

completemusicupdate.com:

Live Nation’s Ticketmaster posted an updated blog post this weekend about all the issues that occurred last week during the pre-sale of tickets for the US dates on Taylor Swift’s 2023 ‘The Eras Tour’, reckoning that about 15% of Swift-related “interactions” on its website “experienced issues”.The update followed an Instagram post from Swift herself on Friday in which she stated: “We asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could”.There was a flood of outrage on social media last week as many Swift fans with access to the pre-sale of tickets for the tour experienced issues with the Ticketmaster platform.

In response to the growing discontent online, the ticketing firm admitted on its own social media that “historically unprecedented demand” was creating delays, but encouraged fans to “hold tight” and thanked them for their patience.A separate pre-sale for Capital One cardholders was then pushed back while Ticketmaster dealt with the ongoing “unprecedented demand”.

Plans to make all of the remaining tickets available to anyone without pre-sale access on Friday were then ultimately called off “due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand”.Following all the social media chatter and accompanying media reporting about the various problems Swift fans were experiencing accessing tickets to her show, the musician herself took to Instagram to respond.“It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans”, she declared, explaining that’s why she tries to run as much of the operations around her music and shows within her own team, so she’s in full control of the fan experience.