Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is officially the golden ticket of the year, if you could somehow get your hands on one in the absolute chaos. Now, a few lucky fans seem to be getting another chance, but it might not be enough to assuage the droves of Swifities who missed out.
On Monday, Ticketmaster said it had emailed some fans who signed up for the “Verified Fan” presale but were unable to secure tickets in the highly publicised botched release. The company directly attributed the additional release of tickets to having “been asked by Taylor’s team.”
Ticketmaster’s FAQs now includes details for how those emailed can redeem their invitation to buy tickets.
“You were identified as a fan who received a boost during the Verified Fan presale but did not purchase tickets,” reads Ticketmaster’s post. “We apologize for the difficulties you may have experienced, and have been asked by Taylor’s team to create this additional opportunity for you to purchase tickets.”
Notably, Ticketmaster isn’t guaranteeing email recipients a ticket. Instead, the company will “send you a summary email that details the show and ticket(s) you’ve requested to purchase.” This would be the show and city you selected during registration for the “Verified Fan” presale and you won’t be able to change this. Then, you’ll be able to submit a request for tickets, and “after the request window has closed, we’ll send you an email to let you know if your request was confirmed.” If confirmed, Ticketmaster will charge your card and you’ll receive an email letting you know how to claim your tickets.
It seems like Swift’s team’s pressure on Ticketmaster may have worked after the nightmare ticket sales rollout for The Eras Tour. Right before Verified Fan presale tickets began on Nov. 15, Ticketmaster’s website crashed. Fans knew buying from Ticketmaster was trouble before they walked in, and the botched sale proved it. Then, Ticketmaster cancelled public ticket sales days later. Mashable spoke to Swifties about the frustrating and disappointing process.
Swift broke her silence on the debacle on Nov. 18, issuing a public statement in an Instagram story about the chaotic sale: “We asked them multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they would.” Considering Ticketmaster explicitly noted it has “been asked by Taylor’s team to create this additional opportunity,” it sounds like some words have been had.
On Nov. 19, Ticketmaster issued a formal apology, and released a statement: “We want to apologize to Taylor and all her fans, especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets…We estimate about 15 percent of interactions across the site experienced issues, and that’s 15 percent too many, including passcode validation errors that caused fans to lose tickets they had carted.”
Ticketmaster’s additional Verified Fan ticket release also comes just a week after a group of Swift fans united to sue LiveNation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, following its absolutely borked rollout of ticket sales.
What a mess.
