We didn't survive The Great War
This email will cut off in your inbox so click the title to read on the Substack website.
This past Tuesday, tickets for Taylor Swift’s highly-anticipated The Eras Tour—which will apparently feature songs from all ten of her albums—went on sale and… it was a complete dumpster fire. Leading up to Tuesday’s presales, Ticketmaster (the company Swift’s team is working with to sell tickets) required fans to pre-register for their Verified Fan program in order to potentially receive a code to purchase presale tickets that would go on sale 10 PM local venue time November 15th (Capital One cardholders would have their own presale access at 2 PM local time the same day, and General Public sales would open November 18th). Additionally, fans who were previously verified for Taylor Swift’s Lover Fest (which was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 Pandemic) were to received “preferred access” to the Eras Tour presale, and fans who purchased music and merch from Swift’s official website also received surprised “boosts” to our place in line for presales.
The problem started before tickets even went on sale. Not only did Ticketmaster crash when people tried to register for the Verified Fan program, but the fine print stated “If demand for tickets from verified fans exceeds supply, verified fans may be selected at random to participate in the presale,” which makes no sense to me. Why would you choose to randomize who gets presale access instead of going by the order people registered? It defeats the purpose of the Lover Fest and boosts benefits. (I was literally the only one in my friend group who got extra boosts for purchasing Swift’s album—I bought four copies, lol—and merch, yet my friends and family members—including non-Swifties—received the presale codes and I didn’t!)
The day presales opened up, all hell broke out. Fans were waiting all day in virtual queues just to get access to purchasing tickets, Ticketmaster was crashing left and right, and it was so bad, they last-minute delayed West Coast ticket sales by five hours. By the time many people finally got through the queue, there were no tickets left to buy. Many people, after enduring as much as 8 hours, who had tickets in their carts weren’t able to complete their purchases because Ticketmaster crashed (my sister was one of’em).
Ticketmaster then pushed back the Capital One presale back a day. And then on Thursday, November 17th, Ticketmaster announced Friday’s General Public sales would no longer happen. “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,” they tweeted. It’s not clear if Ticketmaster is merely postponing sales for the remaining tickets, or if they truly mean they won’t be selling anymore tickets.
Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei responded to the Ticketmaster fiasco in an interview with CNBC on November 17th. (Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged together in 2010 to form Live Nation Entertainment.) Maffei said, “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.” He also blamed the unprecedented demand on the fact that Swift hadn’t been on tour in years. Maffei’s excuse is pretty weak and begs the question, why were 14 million people allowed to enter the queue in the first place? Since presale codes were sent out the day before, why didn’t they set it up to where you can only enter the queue with a presale code?
That same day, Ticketmaster published a blog post explaining what happened (they hilariously deleted the blog post shortly afterwards). Among the reasons the website crashed, Ticketmaster said:
“Based on fan interest at registration we knew this would be big. Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for Taylor’s Verified Fan, which is the largest registration in history.”
“Historically, around 40% of invited fans actually show up and buy tickets, and most purchase an average of 3 tickets. So working with the artist team, around 1.5 million people were invited to participate in the on sale for all 52 show dates.”
“The remaining 2 million Verified Fans were put on the waiting list.”
The problem is, verified fans were allowed to purchase up to six tickets each, so if 1.5 million people were invited for the Verified Fan presale, that meant nine million tickets could theoretically be purchased. But from my calculations, if every single seat in every single stadium from every single tour stop was sold (which wouldn’t be the case, since most seats behind the stage weren’t being sold), there would only be a little over four million tickets available.
Anyway, all of this will hopefully lead to some meaningful change because several congressmen have called out Ticketmaster in the midst of the Taylor Swift sales for their monopolistic behavior, including: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Ilhan Omar, Representative David Cicilline, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Tennessee’s Attorney General is looking into whether consumer protection laws were violated by Ticketmaster.
Taylor Swift tour tickets turned out to be the Great Equalizer where even the famous and powerful were unable to secure tickets, including actor Busy Phillips, news anchor Chris Hayes, and astronaut Scott Kelly (twin brother of U.S. Senator Mark Kelly).
As is almost always the case, humor can make awful experiences a bit more bearable. Here are some of the best tweets about November 15th, a day that will live in infamy (oh, yeah, and Twitter might be dead as soon as this weekend):
“It’s called the “Eras” tour because if you try to log in to Ticketmaster all you get are era messages” — @genethelawyer
“Russia attacking Poland and maybe starting WWIII trending lower than Taylor Swift fans mad Ticketmaster isn’t letting them buy presale is the funniest thing I’ve seen all day.” — @HowDoIBeWhole
“can’t believe i’m gonna have to tell my grandkids that world war iii started when i was stuck in the ticketmaster queue for taylor swift tickets” — @dontblameklara
“i provided my mom with a step by step handout on how to get into presale, facetimed her the night before to explain, and she still started her day by logging on to “ticket network” instead of ticketmaster 😭😭 they aren’t built for this” — @sapphiretearsky
“And they’re all in the Taylor Swift presale queue rn” — @cIitarek
“If you thought getting Taylor Swift tickets was hard… Just wait until you have to figure out how to get to and from Sofi Stadium!” — @americanamemes
“if a taylor swift tour is causing all this chaos with ticketmaster, just imagine how bad the fight for charlie puth tickets will be omg…” — @cursedhive
“my beyoncé ticket money stands in solidarity with my friends taylor swift money” — @hunteryharris
“The Swifties paving the way to get Ticketmaster together before Renaissance tickets drop. This is what the suffragettes fought for. #allyship” — @robinwannabefly
PS: Where the hell did all these Taylor Swift “fans” come from? I know she’s one of the biggest stars on the planet but I saw many people I know IRL who aren’t Swifties but wanted to see her on tour. Where were y’all before? Y’all weren’t in the trenches with us in her darkest hours, when Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were feuding with her and everyone called Swift a liar, when she was Public Enemy Number One.
The Lavender Haze is Over
Many fans, including my own friends, are upset with how The Eras Tour ticket sales were handled, with many not only blaming Ticketmaster but also Taylor Swift herself. Her social media silence throughout the week has rubbed fans the wrong way—they want her to publicly address what happened. I have mixed thoughts on this.
Fans are upset with Ticketmaster’s use of dynamic pricing during The Eras Tour’s presales. (Dynamic pricing is when prices surge based on demand, so many people paid wildly different prices despite sharing similar seats.) Apparently artists have the choice to turn on dynamic pricing or keep it off, so the fact that Swift allowed it to occur angered fans. They’re upset that Swift seems to value money over her fans. But let’s be serious—should any of us really be surprised? Taylor Swift has always been an expert capitalist.
This is the same woman who sent cease and desist letters to vendors who sold items featuring her lyrics or her likeness on Etsy. Swift has a pattern of offering multiple versions of the same album in order to boost sales (Reputation had two versions, Lover had four, Folklore had eight, and Midnights had four). Her Midnights promotion really takes the cake, because Swift announced three special edition versions of her album in various colors that would be sold for like 48 hours, but then these special editions repeatedly came back on her site to be purchased. And then she revealed merch that would turn your albums into a working clock, but only if you purchased four different versions of the album plus spend more money to purchase the actual clock. It was annoying, but I couldn’t blame her—she wasn’t forcing any of us to purchase more than one copy of an album, so if fans wanted to buy multiple copies, that’s on them. (Again, I purchased four copies… two CDs and two vinyls. Not enough to form a clock.)
Swift’s mother used to be a marketing executive, so that’s likely where she got her marketing savviness from. The reason she’s one of the biggest pop stars on the planet is due to this masterful branding.
There have been a couple instances in which Swift has used her power and influence to enact some positive industry-wide change. She wrote an open letter to Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period. The next day, Apple announced they’d pay artists for the trial period.
After Swift’s former record label Big Machine Records sold her entire music catalogue to record executive Scooter Braun, meaning Swift would not own any of her music when she was still with Big Machine Records (six albums total), she famously announced she would re-record her first six albums in order to have full ownership of the “newer” recordings. When she signed with her new label Republic Records (which is owned by Universal Music Group), she successfully negotiated in her contract that any sale of UMG’s shares in Spotify would result in equity shares for all UMG artists. Her contract also allowed Swift to fully own her albums distributed by Republic Records.
While it’s objectively good for an artist to own the rights to their music, Swift’s win is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. She had the power to demand such a good contract with Republic Records, and the bit about Spotify shares would help other artists, sure. But her deal with the label also kinda negatively impacted other less-influential artists. After its deal with Swift, UMG reworked contracts to make it harder for artists to re-record their own albums. The Wall Street Journal reported that UMG was “effectively doubling the amount of time that the contracts restrict an artist from rerecording their work.” Despite this negative impact on artists not named Taylor Swift, she curiously hadn’t said a word about it.
I’m not surprised if Swift values money over fans or over other artists, but I’m also inclined to not jump to conclusions. There could be legal, contractual reasons why Swift can’t speak out against Ticketmaster (the company also dominates the industry) or against her own record label. Other artists have tried and failed to take on Ticketmaster.
If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that celebrities are never your friends. No matter how much you think you know a celebrity, no matter how big of a fan you are of them, they’re not your ally. They’re rich, we’re poor. Your favs will disappoint you, no matter how altruistic they appear. Rihanna supports an abuser, Katy Perry supports a Republican, feminist icon Taylor Swift mind-bogglingly agreed to star in a film directed by someone who sexually assaulted their own niece. You can like a celebrity while also acknowledging their faults. Never put them on a pedestal.
Here are some things I’ve read lately that I recommend:
Nature Has Its Way of Ending Life. I’m Changing the Manner and the Time. (The Cut)
How Constance Wu Survived That Tweetstorm (The New York Times)
William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ (Variety)
National feminist organizations break their silence on Amber Heard in an open letter of support (NBC News)
The men who leave their spouses when they have a life-threatening illness (The Guardian)
How a surprising Democratic strategy may have staved off the midterm red wave (Vox)
Texas Democrats Have a Recruitment Problem (Texas Monthly)
What Happened To Stacey Abrams? (FiveThirtyEight)
Homeland Security Admits It Tried to Manufacture Fake Terrorists for Trump (Gizmodo)
Is this friendship over? (Vox)
Why Does Every Teen in Every Movie Want to Go to Yale? (Vulture)