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Ticketmaster cancels sale of Taylor Swift tickets due to overwhelming demand
Nov 17, 2022, 1:36 PM | Updated: 1:39 pm
Taylor Swift is seen backstage with the Best Artist, Best Video, Best Pop and Best Longform Video Awards during the Best MTV Europe Music Awards 2022 held at PSD Bank Dome on November 13, 2022 in Duesseldorf, Germany. (Dave J Hogan/Getty Imges for MTV)
(Dave J Hogan/Getty Imges for MTV)
(CNN) — Anyone looking to buy a ticket to Taylor Swift’s new tour may be out of luck.
Ticketmaster said on Thursday that “due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.”
Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow's public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 17, 2022
The sudden cancellation comes after Ticketmaster said Thursday that more than 2 million tickets were sold Tuesday for her upcoming tour — the most ever sold for an artist in a single day. It caused a near meltdown of its website.
In a blog post Thursday, Ticketmaster explained that a “record number of fans” wanted to buy tickets to Swift’s Eras Tour, which begins next year. That prompted a massive slowdown in its platform and sparked outrage among her millions of fans who couldn’t purchase tickets.
Ticketmaster basically said that its “Verified Fans” system, a mechanism aimed at eliminating bots that gives presale codes to individuals, couldn’t keep up with the intense demand. Roughly 3.5 million people signed up for the program to buy Swift tickets, its “largest registration in history.” That unprecedented demand, combined with a “staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes” drove “unprecedented traffic” to its site, Ticketmaster said, and, essentially, broke it.
“Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention — or uninvited volume,” Ticketmaster said in the blog post. “This disrupted the predictability and reliability that is the hallmark of our Verified Fan platform.”
On Tuesday morning, Ticketmaster told CNN Business that the website was “not down” and that “people are actively purchasing tickets.” It added that “there has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up” to buy tickets for Swift’s tour.
if ticketmaster can’t even handle the eras tour presales… i don’t even want to know how they’re planning to handle the general sale
— The Eras Tour (@tswifterastour) November 16, 2022
The debacle not only stirred outrage among Swift’s fans, but also caught the ire of politicians. Senator Amy Klobuchar criticized Ticketmaster in an open letter to its CEO, saying she has “serious concerns” about the company’s operations.
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