Ticketmaster Runs Out of Taylor Swift Tix Before Public On-Sale

Posted on: November 17, 2022, 04:30h. 

Last updated on: November 17, 2022, 07:49h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Myths.

Ticketmaster sold all the tickets to the Taylor Swift’s upcoming “The Eras Tour” before they ever went on sale to the public. Its public on-sale, set for 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 18, was canceled the day before.

“Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale … has been cancelled,” Ticketmaster tweeted Thursday.

Taylor Swift
All the Taylor Swift tickets are gone. (Image: hellogiggles.com)

Swift’s tour includes performances at the 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Friday, March 24, and Saturday, March 25. These will be her first full, non-festival sets in town since May 23, 2009. (That’s when she performed at the Mandalay Bay Event Center – now the Michelob Ultra Arena – as part of her “Fearless” tour.)

I Knew You Were Trouble

This is the first time in the California-based ticket distributor’s 47-year history that it has canceled a previously announced general on-sale because of lack of inventory.

When verified fans entered the Ticketmaster pre-sale and tried their codes on Tuesday, many reported that they did not work.

“I had tickets in my cart and was kicked to the back of the queue,” one tweeted, tagging @TMFanSupport. “I am so upset.”

Another fan tweeted: “I went through the queue after 3 hours and it gave me an error when it was my turn. How is that fair?”

So many fans sat in the Ticketmaster queue on Tuesday, waiting for hours for their chance to purchase Swift tickets, that the site locked up and paused. Trying to buy itself time, the ticket distributor then delayed the start of the pre-sale for five hours while it figured out what had happened and how to best handle the situation.

Ticketmaster’s Explanation

According to Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, Ticketmaster’s largest shareholder, 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans were supposed to be able to purchase tickets during the presale, which began Tuesday. They were emailed exclusive codes to do so.

However, the site received 14 million purchase requests with the correct codes. Many of those came from bots, Maffie told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” referring to autonomous programs designed to complete internet transactions.

Maffei defended Ticketmaster, saying the company successfully sold more than 2 million tickets on Tuesday, but that demand for Swift “could have filled 900 stadiums.”

Swift Backlash

On Thursday, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, wrote a letter to Ticketmaster raising concern about the lack of competition in the ticketing industry and the effect that has on the service it provides to consumers.

“Reports about system failures, increasing fees, and complaints of conduct that violate the consent decree Ticketmaster is under suggest that Ticketmaster continues to abuse its market positions,” Klobuchar (D-Mn.) wrote to Michael Rapino, president and CEO of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation.

“Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services,” her letter continued. “That can result in the types of dramatic service failures we saw this week, where consumers are the ones that pay the price.”

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also announced he was launching an investigation into Ticketmaster because of the overwhelming number of complaints made to his office by customers throughout the Swift pre-sales.