This past Tuesday, ticket presale for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour opened up, causing chaos to ensue over the internet and inside Manual as fans swarmed to buy tickets.

Swift has not toured since 2018 during her Reputation Stadium Tour, and anticipation of another has been rising ever since the release of her tenth studio album, Midnights, in October. 

The highly anticipated tour was announced on November 1st and fans scrambled to register for Ticketmaster’s exclusive Verified Fan Presale. There was also a presale for Capital One cardholders.

Tickets were intended to go on sale to the general public on Friday, November 18th. Those with Capital One cards had access to tickets on Wednesday, November 15 and the Verified Fan presale took place on Tuesday, November 14.

According to Ticketmaster’s website, “Verified Fan is committed to getting more tickets into the hands of fans fairly, and at the prices set…doesn’t guarantee that everyone who is Verified will get a ticket, but it does level the playing field so more tickets go to fans who intend to go to the show – not ticket bots.”

Verified Fan is where the problems started for most Swifties as an influx of people signed up in the hope they would be accepted. Being accepted meant having a chance at getting a presale code resulting in hour-long wait times to even register. 

Fans were notified as to whether they were accepted, waitlisted, or rejected for presale by email on November 14th. 

“I was rejected and waited for like 3 hours to even sign up to get presale,” Ava Wiseman (9, HSU) said.

However, for fans that were lucky enough to receive codes the mayhem started when Ticketmaster crashed moments before tickets were expected to go on sale. Tickets went on sale at 10 am local venue time, which is in the middle of Manual’s Red 2 block, but many students were on Ticketmaster even earlier in the waiting room attempting to get places higher in the queue. 

Fans at Manual kept constantly refreshing their screens and racing to get into the virtual queue while trying to pay attention in class. Some had parents, relatives, or friends in the queue trying to get tickets while they were in school. 

Martin Zena (10, HSU) explained how there were multiple people in his Red 2 economics class attempting to buy tickets to the point of putting off working on a project.

Alena Polimati (10, MST) was one of the few fans that managed to get tickets during school. “I was worried that I would have a test or quiz during that class or that my teacher wouldn’t let me have my laptop out but luckily he didn’t say anything,” Polimati said.

Taya Bunch (12, J&C) was another one of the lucky fans to secure tickets on Tuesday after her friends attempted to get them all day. “All day I was on my phone just like being emotional support for them,” Bunch said.

As the day progressed, Ticketmaster kept malfunctioning and queues were halted, leaving fans waiting hours.

Drew Ashley (9, YPAS) waited in the queue for 7 hours before the virtual line even started moving. When he got to the front of the virtual line, which would allow fans to enter their presale code and then buy tickets, he got kicked out and put behind 2,000+ fans again. 

He explained that he proceeded to get kicked out multiple times over 2 hours and by the time he got in, there were no tickets left available.

“Taylor Swift concerts are an absolute blast. It’s a whole entire show, there’s lights, there’s fireworks, fire,” Ashley said.

Despite the fiasco on Tuesday, Ashley was able to get tickets through the Capital One presale on Wednesday.

Fans queuing hours to get registered for Verified Fan and then hours more on the day of ticket sales was not unusual, as fans all across the country experienced the same thing. Many took to social media to express their distaste for how Ticketmaster handled the situation.

Even politicians have spoken out about the situation. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the House of Representatives, took to Twitter to criticize Ticketmaster and Live Nation. 

Live Nation spokesperson Greg Maffei explained in an interview with CBS News that 1.5 million Verified Fan codes were supposed to be sent out. However, a massive 14 million were on Ticketmaster’s website at the time of ticket sales, causing long wait times and crashes.

Things got worse for Taylor Swift fans on Thursday afternoon when Ticketmaster took to Twitter to announce that the general sale for the Eras Tour would be canceled. 

The statement read: “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 canceled.”

Swifties who weren’t able to become a Verified Fan or able to get tickets were immensely disappointed with the announcement. 

“I was mainly disappointed because I really wanted to get tickets. I feel like going to the concert will be an amazing experience because I am a big Taylor Swift fan,” Megan Nissen (11, HSU) said. 

Ticketmaster took to Twitter on Friday and released a statement saying: “We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets.”

Swift also released a statement on Friday afternoon apologizing to fans and criticizing Ticketmaster for the long wait times and cancellation of the general sale, after fans were blaming her for the issues with tickets.

“And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs. Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means,” Swift said in the statement posted to Instagram.

Ticketmaster has yet to announce any other details about the general sale or procedures. However, on resale sites such as Vivid Seats and StubHub, the cheapest tickets are being sold for around $400 and the most expensive can get up to $15,000 a ticket.

“I don’t know if sales should’ve been completely halted but I’m not sure much could’ve been done. I know tons of people wanted to go to this concert so I know thousands of people were going to try and get tickets at the same time,” Nissen said.

Despite these issues with Ticketmaster, Taylor Swift will kick off her Eras Tour in March of 2023 in Glendale, Arizona.