It turns out Taylor Swift gave us all an easter egg in her hit song Bejeweled when she told us we might have to wait in line. After releasing her highly anticipated 10th studio album, Midnights (which we covered here), Swift surprised fans with an “Eras Tour”. This tour will have music from all of Swifts albums and span from March to August of 2023. This will be the first time Swift has been on tour since here Reputation tour in 2018, as her Loverfest tour was canceled due to COVID-19.
I’m enchanted to announce my next tour: Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!) The first leg of the tour will be in stadiums across the US, with international dates to be announced as soon as we can!https://t.co/KFuqvrhSGo pic.twitter.com/eVyTcuW8sK
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 1, 2022
https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1588516506349891584?s=20&t=CPSXCeH1BChr5LqQvXdrYA
Fans were excited to buy tickets and were granted an opportunity to enlist in a “Verified Fan” presale hosted by Ticketmaster. This would allow fans to pick tour dates and if selected, allowed to purchase tickets early on Tuesday November 15th. Fans who weren’t selected were promised opportunities to purchase tickets through a presale for Capital One card holders or during the general sale which was supposed to be held Friday, November 18th.
On Tuesday, the 15th, fans eagerly logged onto Ticketmaster to buy their tickets. However, they were greeted with less than favroable circumstances. Lines for tickets were hours long and Ticketmaster ended up pausing the queue multiple times. Ticketmaster said that this was due to an unprecedented amount of people and bots entering the queue – both of which the verified fan presale intends to prevent. On the 15th, Ticketmaster released a statement saying that many tickets have been sold and they are trying to get through the queues as soon as possible, but that they will be delaying the Capital One presale.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 15, 2022
After the Capital One presale, Ticketmaster then released the statement that would ultimately cause outrage by fans – there were no more tickets left and the general sale was canceled.
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.
— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 17, 2022
So who exactly is talking about Ticketmaster? The name of the company has been mentioned over 1.06 million times since November 14th and reached over 6.67 billion users. Unsurprisingly, the sentiments were 86% negative (386.89k mentions). The volume of these mentions reached a peak on the 15th of November (487,678 mentions). The primary platform users are discussing Ticketmaster is Twitter.
Users engaging in conversations surrounding Ticketmaster have been primarily users who identify as female (561.3k mentions) who reside in the United States (347.1k mentions). Top influencers include news sources, like The New York Times and CNN, as well as politicians like Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez and Senator Blumenthal who were critical of Ticketmaster as a monopoly.
Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.
Break them up.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 15, 2022
Taylor Swift’s tour sale is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger harms consumers by creating a near-monopoly. I’ve long urged DOJ to investigate the state of competition in the ticketing industry. Consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior.
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) November 16, 2022
Swifties being radicalized against monopolies and getting ready to do some anti-trust lobbying good luck ticketmaster
— Elamin Abdelmahmoud (@elamin88) November 15, 2022
Even, the Tenessee Attorney General announced in a tweet that they would be looking into this incident.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is concerned about consumer complaints related to @Ticketmaster’s pre-sale of @taylorswift13 concert tickets. He and his Consumer Protection team will use every available tool to ensure that no consumer protection laws were violated.
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) November 16, 2022
Other tweets focused on how large the news of this scandal was as it trended over more serious issues such as the recent attacks in Poland.
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. pic.twitter.com/OvHXDDBJ3H
— Alex (@HowDoIBHop) November 15, 2022
https://twitter.com/Pluto_Shmurda/status/1592615266953101312?s=20&t=bzdErj48gcVXQkfwXbe4Ww
Finally, some Swifites just made light of the situation by making jokes and lyric related puns.
when you're trying to get taylor swift tix but ticketmaster keeps crashing pic.twitter.com/FOSdMrIP2Y
— Megan Plevy (@mplevz) November 15, 2022
Did the ticketmaster bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, how long were you in that queue?— nicole (@swiftiieeeeee) November 17, 2022
While the controversy surrounding Ticketmaster is just beginning and certainly the star of the show right now, we must acknowledge that Swift still managed to break records with this ticket sale.
Taylor Swift officially broke the record for most tickets ever sold for an artist on Ticketmaster in a single day, with pre-sale of ‘The Eras’ tour. (2 million) pic.twitter.com/4CAYQ3pt5n
— Pop Base (@PopBase) November 17, 2022
As always, the Social Media Listening Center will continue to monitor these conversations and report any updates.
Author: Michelle Brazeau
