Ticketmaster apologizes to Taylor Swift and fans over ticket debacle

Ticketmaster has issued a formal apology to Taylor Swift and her fans over the disaster in ticket sales that were experienced this week.

“We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets. Next, we feel we owe it to everyone to share some information to help explain what happened,” Ticketmaster wrote on their Twitter account.

The ticket company went into detail on its website as to why it was so difficult for fans to purchase tickets for ‘The Eras Tour.’

They described in three parts that the demand for Swift’s highly anticipated tour smashed records.

“By requiring registrations, Verified Fan is designed to help manage high-demand shows – identifying real humans and weeding out bots. Keeping bots out of queues and avoiding overcrowding helps to make wait times shorter and onsales smoother,” Ticketmaster explained.

Ticketmaster continued to say that although they have handled sales for “countless top tours”, never did they see anything like this.

“Never before has a Verified Fan onsale sparked so much attention – or traffic. This disrupted the predictability and reliability that is the hallmark of our Verified Fan platform.”

Ticketmaster added despite disruptions, a new record of sales was set, “over 2 million tickets were sold on Ticketmaster for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour on Nov. 15.”

Ticketmaster ended by saying “Even when a high demand onsale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty-handed. For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.”

The apology comes a day after Ticketmaster canceled its general public sale citing “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand” was the reason for the cancellation.

Swift took to Instagram on Friday, addressing the ticket debacle, saying “she’s extremely protective over her fans.”

“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.

The singer continued by saying “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.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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