Angry Taylor Swift speaks out after Ticketmaster’s ‘Eras Tour’ ticket disaster
Taylor Swift has spoken out after Ticketmaster canceled the public sale of tickets for her forthcoming “Eras Tour.”
“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,” she began her statement that was posted to social media.
“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. 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.”
Swift said there was “a multitude of reasons” why people had “such a hard time trying to get tickets” and is trying to figure out how to “improve” the disastrous rollout moving forward.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this time of demand and we were assured they could,” she continued.
“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.”
Swift, 32, said she hopes to provide “more opportunities” to get together with her fans who weren’t able to get tickets.
“Thank you for wanting to be there,” she concluded. “You have no idea how much that means.”
Ticketmaster made the announcement Thursday, devastating legions of Swifties who were unable to secure concert tickets.
“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,” the company said in a tweet.
Twitter users were quick to demand a word on the matter from Swift, which they’ve now received.
“THIS TOUR IS CALLED THE TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS TOUR. ITS UNDER HER NAME. SHE NEEDS TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS,” one of many upset fans posted.
“Please say something this is devastating to the people who have loved and supported you for over a decade and came out of this with nothing @taylorswift13 please say anything,” another begged.
The cancellation of the public sale came after the CEO of Live Nation’s largest shareholder blamed a surge of demand from 14 million users — including bots — for disruptions to the site, including slow queues for presales earlier this week.
Tickets to Swift’s show — which is scheduled to kick off March 17 in Glendale, Ariz. — cost between $49 and $449 each.
Fans reportedly saw tickets that cost up to $22,000 on the ticket reseller site StubHub.
A portion of fans said they spent eight hours in a virtual queue on Ticketmaster after tickets went on sale before they were unexpectedly kicked out of line.
Swift announced her highly anticipated tour earlier this month. The “Eras Tour” will support her record-shattering album “Midnights,” released in October.
Ticketmaster has been met with widespread criticism in the wake of the “Eras Tour” debacle.
Many — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and more members of Congress — have voiced support for having Ticketmaster unmerge from Live Nation, widely considered a monopoly that may violate antitrust laws.
