Taylor Swift Breaks Her Silence on How Ticketmaster Handled the Eras Tour: ‘It Really Pisses Me Off’
Swifties went through it this week trying to get tickets for Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras tour during its presale for “verified fans.” They struggled with Live Nation’s Ticketmaster site, its long queues, and site bugs. And Ticketmaster gave them more reason to be outraged when it announced yesterday that it was canceling the general public sale of tickets, set to begin today, due to “overwhelming demand” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
Swifties aren’t alone in feeling upset; Taylor Swift released a statement on her Instagram Story today, saying she is “pissed” too about the entire ordeal and that she will do things differently in the future.
She wrote:
Well. It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans. We’ve been doing this for decades together and over the years, I’ve brought so many elements of my career in house. I’ve done this SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans’ experience b doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do. It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.
There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation will be improved moving forward. I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were issued they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.
And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs. Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means.
Ticketmaster has yet to respond to Swift’s post or release any statement apologizing for the tour ticket rollout.
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.