Just two days after the Ticketmaster site experienced significant delays after millions of fans signed on to purchase pre-sale tickets to Taylor Swift’s 2023 The Eras Tour concerts, ongoing tickets sales to the public for the shows are being cancelled due to extreme demand, according to the ticket distribution company.
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“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,” read a post on the main Ticketmaster Twitter page.
Shares of Live Nation fell more than three percent on Nov. 17, according to Liberty Media, one of the largest shareholders of Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, two days after pre-sale tickets went on sale for a number of dates for Swift’s upcoming tour, her first in five years.
Moments after tickets went on sale, customers who had verified pre-sale codes, experienced extreme lags waiting in online ticket queues with some forced to leave the page and restart. At one point, the entire page to purchase tickets appeared to have crashed or shut down.
“There has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix pre-sale,” read a recent statement on the Ticketmaster Fan Support Twitter page on the pre-sale day, Nov. 15 following the delays. “Hundreds of thousands of tickets have been sold. If you have secured your tickets, you are set.”
Though more than two million were reportedly sold, despite the online hiccups, the decision to cancel ongoing public sales of the tickets comes after the CEO of Liberty media blamed the surge of demand from 14 million users, including bots, for the disruption of the site, including slowed down ticket queues.
“It’s a function of Taylor Swift,” said Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media. “The site was supposed to open up for 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans. We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots, which are not supposed to be there.”
The combined demand for Swift’s shows “could have filled 900 stadiums,” according to Maffei, who added, “This exceeded every expectation.”
Swift recently added 17 more dates to the Eras Tour in support of her tenth album, Midnights, released on Oct. 21. Her tour will feature guests Paramore, HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers, MUNA, beabadoobee, and a number of other artists.
The U.S. leg of 2023 The Eras Tour kicks off on March 18 at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and concludes Aug. 9 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Photo: Emma McIntyre/AMA2019/Getty Images for dcp
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