Ticketmaster Goes Bust Amidst Taylor Swift Tickets Rush

A+promotional+image+advertising+Swifts+latest+tour%2C+via+Ticketmaster

A promotional image advertising Swift’s latest tour, via Ticketmaster

Taylor Swift has been making a lot of music history over the past three weeks. Following the release of her tenth studio album, Midnights, Swift has held the top ten spots on Billboard’s Hot 100. She is the first artist in Billboard’s 64-year history to claim the top ten spots in a single frame. Accompanying her latest album, Taylor Swift announced the dates for her Eras Tour two weeks ago and gave fans the opportunity to sign up for ticket presale. Students who signed up received a personal code which would give them access to purchase tickets from Ticketmaster at 10:00 AM on November 15th. 

Some students left West Po right after first period to ensure that they could get into the site on time. “I left [at] about 9:30, right before homeroom started.” Junior Natalia Bufano said. The demand for tickets was unprecedented which caused the site to crash and deny access.   “I tried logging onto the website but it kept giving me a 503 error… I eventually got into the waiting room,” Natalia said. 

At 10:00 AM customers were placed in a queue which told most that there were 2000+ eager fans ahead of them.  The queue moved along for the first hour until more problems occurred. “Once it hit a little above the halfway mark it stayed there for two and a half hours and that was when Ticketmaster crashed,” Natalia said. Customers were stuck waiting anxiously for hours while they waited for the website to begin moving again.

Finally, some students were lucky enough to get tickets. Over two million tickets were sold. “The entire thing was so stressful… thankfully it was a review day in my math class so I didn’t miss much,” Natalia said.  “I’m really thankful to have gotten tickets because there’s a lot of people who didn’t.”