Following widespread criticism of Ticketmaster‘s handling of ticket sales for her upcoming “Eras Tour,” Taylor Swift has shared a statement addressing the situation, saying that she asked Ticketmaster “multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” She said the situation “pissed me off” and added that it was “excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”
Her full statement appeared on her Instagram Stories: “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 by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do,” she wrote. “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 can 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 assured 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.
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“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.”
Delays, skyrocketing prices and outright cancellations of ticket sales have turned the ticket-buying process for Swift’s highly anticipated tour into chaos, causing Ticketmaster to cancel the public on-sale date for the tour, which was scheduled for Friday, Nov. 18.
Prior to the cancellation, Ticketmaster issued a statement explaining the record-breaking demand for Swift’s upcoming tour, which led to site crashes and a litany of glitches that frustrated fans hoping to secure tickets through the platform’s Verified Fan process, which attempted to weed out ticket-buying bots. Many fans reportedly waited in a queue for multiple hours before being kicked out, while many who signed up through the Verified Fan program were outright waitlisted and not allowed to buy tickets until the general public on-sale, which wound up being canceled.
The “Eras Tour,” a 52-show U.S. stadium tour, had its schedule rolled out in stages in the first half of November following the release of Swift’s 10th studio album “Midnights,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 1.5 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week. The album’s lead single “Anti-Hero” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 and held firm in its second week despite Drake and 21 Savage’s collaborative record “Her Loss.”