Taylor Swift tour: did Ticketmaster cancel general tickets in US for 2023 Eras Tour - will UK fans be affected

Taylor Swift fans have been left baffled after being unable to buy tickets for the US leg of her upcoming Eras Tour. After citing “insufficient ticket inventory” to meet “extraordinarily high demands”, Ticketmaster confirmed that the general sale of tickets had been cancelled.

This is everything you need to know.

What happened?

General ticket sales were planned to open on Friday morning, following the verified fan presale which opened on Tuesday, however the company cancelled the public sale altogether prior to Friday.

On Thursday, Ticketmaster tweeted: “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.”

The ticket company had previously asked fans on Twitter to be patient as “millions” tried to buy tickets in the presale, causing “historically unprecedented demand”. According to Ticketmaster, more than 3.5 million Swift fans had registered in advance for the tickets as “verified fans”, with tickets going on sale for those specific fans earlier in the week.

The plan originally was to invite 1.5 million of those fans to purchase tickets, with the remaining 2 million placed on a waiting list - however, this set up was thrown into chaos due to attacks from “bots” and demand from customers who hadn’t previously registered.

Ticketmaster said: “The staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests - 4x our previous peak.

“Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention - or uninvited volume.”

Since then, tickets for Swift’s performances have appeared on resale sites for thousands of dollars each.

What has the reaction been like?

Fans have been left upset and angry over the situation, with many airing their grievances on Twitter.

One person wrote: “Would [Ticketmaster] care to comment on how hundreds of fans with presale AND boosts were unable to get tickets, but hundreds of scalpers were able to get multiple tickets through VERIFIED FAN presale and are no reselling them for THOUSANDS of dollars?”

Another tweeted: “So how are you going to get the thousands of tickets back from bots and resellers who jacked up the prices up to a couple thousand if not more per ticket?????”

“Ticketmaster is like “we’ve hidden five Taylor Swift tickets in chocolate bars located across the world GOOD LUCK”,” another wrote.

One person tweeted: “Me trying to figure out how Ticketmaster wasn’t prepared for the demand for Taylor Swift tickets when they sent out presale codes themselves to control a certain amount of people entering the presale #TheErasTour”

Swift herself has not yet commented on the matter.

Will UK fans be affected?

At the moment, it’s unclear how UK fans may or may not be affected by how things panned out with the US release of tickets. Currently, there is no set date for when tickets for UK shows will be made available.

Previously, fans were able to sign up for special pre-sale access for UK tickets on Swift’s UK store, however that was closed back in October.

At the time, the site said: “Pre-sale details & further information will be confirmed at a later date and will be communicated with you officially and via the email you supply at checkout, so you have plenty of warning ahead of the pre-sale launch.”