Seeing Taylor Swift live is a dream come true for millions of her fans. And they work hard to find out by waiting hours in virtual ticketing queues, shelling out thousands of dollars for seats, and even standing in outdoor parking lots. his concert venues to listen from afar.
But in some ways, “Swifties” may have become anti-heroes. Many of them became ticket sellers through ticket sites like StubHub, and that unleashed chaos in the form of invalid or duplicate tickets and unfulfilled orders. This is why we can’t have nice things, as Swift put it in one of her hit songs, but in a more general sense.
“We’re experiencing near-record demand for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, driving an unprecedented number of fan sales,” StubHub said. THE Wall Street Journal. The company noted that 70% of Swift’s concert ticket orders on StubHub came from fan sellers rather than ticket sellers, which is double the norm for other live acts. In addition, about 63% of the Eras Tour orders that caused problems were sold by inexperienced fan sellers, the Journal reported.
Swift’s long-awaited tour—her first in five years—was a blockbuster from the start, when pre-sale tickets went live on ticket seller Ticketmaster in November. During that time, “extremely high demand” caused glitches, which ultimately led to Ticketmaster’s cancellation general ticket sales. Although the initial anger of fans has been quelled, the appetite for Swifties tickets remains high. Concert tickets are sold at exorbitant prices—some as high $45,000.
We have one seller with a SINGLE (1) VIP Floor Ticket ($900) for Metlife 5/28! If this ticket is cheap you will be interested to answer this tweet why you want to go 🫶🏼
— Eras Tour Resell (@ErasTourResell) May 25, 2023
This time, the flood of Swift fans who managed to sell tickets for the Eras Tour created new obstacles for services including StubHub. Many fans, who tried to resell the ticket for the first time, did not immediately communicate with StubHub about transferring their tickets to the buyers, leading the company to prompt the buyers to find new ones. platform tickets. Resellers also listed tickets on multiple platforms and failed to get posted after the tickets sold, adding to the confusion on StubHub’s end, the ticketing platform said. the Journal.
For StubHub, the confusion forced it to pay thousands of dollars in refunds to fans who lost their seats. In other cases, the company has to pay the price difference for the newly secured tickets that the fans were caught in the buying frenzy. To manage the number of fan resellers, StubHub implemented deadlines for sellers to deliver tickets to buyers and now makes sure to call sellers who don’t confirm ticket transfers on time, according to the Journal. The company also helps buyers find replacement tickets when available.
StubHub did not immediately respond lucknor request for comment, nor others resale platforms including Vivid Seats and SeatGeek.
In the previous pre-sale ticketing fiasco involving Swift, Ticketmaster said its system was overwhelmed through bots which floods its servers where approx 3.5 million fans have already registered. The company, which is widely used to buy sports, Broadway shows, and concert tickets, said it was experiencing unprecedented demand for Swift’s Eras Tour tickets, and that the system Its Verified Fans, which provide codes to invite fans to buy tickets, have worked well in the past for other concert tour ticket sales. After initially canceling general sale tickets for Swift, Ticketmaster tried again and eventually sold tickets to some of its registered fans, according to the Journal.
Ticketmaster, which controls about 70% in the main ticketing and live event venues market, said the Journal that it is not offering tickets for the Eras Tour again. Of the tickets it sold, Ticketmaster said luck that only 5% of them land on the secondary market due to the Verified Fans system, compared to 20-30% in the case of non-verified counterparts. But the disappointment of fans after the failed pre-sale test remains many customers for subsequent concert ticket sales, including Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour that began earlier this month.
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After the meltdown, the Tennessee attorney said in November that he should have investigated Ticketmaster, and leading ticketing executives summoned to testify before the Senate in January amid complaints that Ticketmaster was a monopoly.
In November, Swift expressed her frustration about the ticketing mess on social media.
“I will not argue with anyone because we have asked them, many times, if they can do this kind of need and they have assured us that they can,” he WRITES on Instagram. “It’s really amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but I’m really upset that so many of them feel like they went through so many bear attacks to get them.”