Ticketmaster cancels Taylor Swift ticket sales, faces wrath of fans and US Congress
- The company halted its general sale for the singer’s ‘Eras’ tour after 3.5 billion ticket requests overwhelmed the website
- Fans vented their anger over high prices and poor service as prominent senators urged the Justice Department to probe Ticketmaster on antitrust grounds
Ticketmaster cancelled Friday’s planned ticket sales to the general public for Taylor Swift’s 2023 US concert tour as 3.5 billion ticket requests from fans, bots and scalpers overwhelmed the website with record demand.
Meanwhile, customer complaints mounted over high prices and poor service, and prominent members of the US Congress backed public pleas for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Ticketmaster on antitrust grounds.
The American singer’s highly anticipated “Eras” tour, her first in five years, had already set the entertainment industry abuzz. In the “presale” round on Tuesday, over 2 million tickets were sold, the most ever for an artist in a single day, Ticketmaster said.
Even so, the experience left many fans frustrated with long wait times and site outages, and many unable to obtain tickets.
It was not immediately clear when the remaining tickets might go back on sale.
Ticketmaster representatives did not immediately respond to interview requests to answer the criticism, but the company, whose parent is Live Nation Entertainment Inc, did issue a statement acknowledging the difficulties encountered by fans.
