On Nov. 1st, Taylor Swift announced her new tour, The Eras Tour, after the release of her newest album, Midnights. However, the tour, which has been long-awaited by many, has turned into a legal matter after Ticketmaster was held responsible for problems with the presale of The Eras Tour tickets; the company is said to have displayed “antitrust” matters. 

The ticketing process for the tour started with registration through Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Presale. With this registration, Swifties were given the chance to be selected for a presale code. The registration began on Nov. 1st at 8 A.M., and, while most people received an email verifying their registration, only some of those who received the email were provided with a presale code.

On Nov. 14th, presale codes were sent out every hour, through email, to random fans who pre-registered through the Verified Fan platform. In the email, Ticketmaster ensured that “you have been selected to shop for tickets.”

For those who received a presale code the evening before, the process began around 9:30 A.M. on Nov. 15th, in the presale waiting room. 

Swift also held a Capital One Cardholder Presale. The Verified Fan and Capital One presale had the same process; however, the actual presale of tickets was held the next day: on Nov. 16th. 

Grace Misha and Faith Bet, two Pascack Valley Swifties who were lucky enough to purchase tickets, described the “Mean” process they experienced with the Verified Fan presale. 

Misha and Bet used one presale code to order their tickets together. They entered the waiting room on the website and were already having problems, but they were able to “Shake It Off.”

“Ticketmaster was having issues where you couldn’t log into your account, so any time you would try to log in it would say ‘509 error’,” Misha said. 

Once they moved past the waiting room, they were then put in the queue to purchase tickets. Misha and Bet were stuck on a screen that said “2000+” for three hours before they moved to the ticket page.

 “We were a little stressed,” Bet said, as they checked Twitter threads of fellow Swifties while waiting and saw that “some people got tickets but a lot of people were also paused.”

After the “Treacherous” three-hour wait, Misha and Bet reached the ticket page. 

At this point of the process, they were directed to enter the presale code sent to the email that was received on Nov. 14th. Once the code was accepted, a map of seats with prices was shown on the screen. 

“By the time we got in, there were [almost] no seats left,” Misha said. 

Though they did wind up purchasing tickets, Misha and Bet ended up spending over $300 on each ticket for seats they did not originally plan on getting. According to Bet, Swift allowed Ticketmaster to “[turn] on dynamic pricing,” which enabled the company to up the prices of the tickets for greater profit.

On Nov. 22nd, the US Senate called for a hearing surrounding Ticketmaster and the sale of tickets for The Eras Tour. “A U.S. Senate antitrust panel will hold a hearing on the lack of competition in the ticketing industry after Ticketmaster’s problems last week managing the sale of Taylor Swift tickets,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar in an interview with Reuters.

The hearing will focus on “‘…how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike,’” Klobuchar said.

On Instagram, Swift said that watching her fans struggle to get tickets that Ticketmaster ensured would be easily distributed was “excruciating.” 

Ticketmaster claimed, via Twitter,  that “bot attacks” were responsible for the frequent crashes and other problems associated with the presale. 

As both the Verified Fan and Capital One Cardholder presales created many problems in the purchase process, Ticketmaster decided to cancel the sale of tickets to the general public due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.” 

Maya Tate, a PV junior who was unable to obtain tickets, explained her feelings toward the debacle. “I was really devastated because I was under the impression that general admission was going to open up and there would be seats available,” Tate said. 

As of now, The Eras Tour will proceed with the original concert schedule. 

When asked about how she would try to find tickets after the cancellation of the general admission sale, Tate said, “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens over time.”