Taylor Swift Speaks Out on 'Excruciating' Presale for Eras Tour

Out of protectiveness for her fans, 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.” Though vague, she appears to be referencing Ticketmaster’s Twitter announcement to cancel today's sale after several issues with the fan presale.

The distribution company cited “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand…” However, Swift hit back against this claim in her post, writing, “We asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”

Related | Taylor Swift's Tour Presale Crashed Ticketmaster

Initially, Ticketmaster claimed to have sold two million tickets on Tuesday, the day presale opened, according to the New York Times. Then, in a since-deleted post, they said 3.5 million people registered for the Verified Fan program in anticipation of the presale and about 1.5 million of them received a special code, while the remaining two million entered a waiting list. Ultimately, Ticketmaster quadrupled its previous peak with 3.5 billion system requests that day.

Of course, this all left Swifties in shambles for days as they scrambled for seats.

Ultimately, Swift wrote that 2.4 million people got tickets, but “it really pissed [her] off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.” Coming off of her chart-topping album Midnights, the Eras Tour is her first in five years. With 52 dates in North America starting in March, it’s no surprise that fans all over the country are desperate to see the legendary singer.

Still, the ticketing debacle has resurfaced concerns from lawmakers over the 2010 merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, according to the New York Times. Though it predates the Eras Tour crashes, the Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation over whether Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power in the live music industry. The broad inquiry is examining the company’s potential monopoly.

Needless to say, Swifties are calling out Ticketmaster and defending Swift in the aftermath.

Photo courtesy of Zack Whitford/BFA