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Taylor Swift Fans Angry at Ticketmaster for Tour Ticket Presale Headaches

"Ticketmaster is in fact not a sexy baby," one fan says as the ticket site cites "historically unprecedented" demand for the 2023 Eras tour.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
3 min read
Dressed in a sparkling silver dress, Taylor Swift accepts an award on stage during the MTV Europe Music Awards in Duesseldorf, Germany, on Nov. 13.

Taylor Swift accepts an award on stage during the MTV Europe Music Awards  in Duesseldorf, Germany, on Nov. 13. 

 Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Taylor Swift ticket sales weren't too swift on Tuesday morning. Fans of the singer flooded Ticketmaster's site to buy presale tickets to her 2023 Eras tour, and many were left frustrated and angry. Ticketmaster tweeted a statement that cited "historically unprecedented demand" for tickets, saying "millions" of people were attempting to buy them.

Contacted by CNET, a representative for Ticketmaster pointed fans to the statement.

The statement also says "hundreds of thousands" of tickets have been successfully sold and urged fans waiting in online queues to stay put. 

Ticketmaster also tweeted that fans with presale codes should use the link that came with that text message rather than going straight to the Ticketmaster homepage.

Timing changes

There have been some shifts in timing for the presale. West Coast presales for Seattle; Santa Clara, California; Los Angeles and Las Vegas were originally scheduled for 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday, but have been rescheduled for 3 p.m. PT instead, with those queues opening 30 minutes ahead. The Capital One sale, which requires a Capital One credit card, was originally scheduled for 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday but has been pushed back to 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday instead. Any presale codes and links should continue to work at the new time, Ticketmaster said.

Info about the tour

Ticketmaster is the only place to get tickets for the tour, which begins on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, and ends Aug. 9 in Los Angeles. Swift will play in large sports stadiums. In addition to Glendale and Los Angeles, Swift will visit Santa Clara, California; Seattle; Denver; Kansas City; Cincinnati; Minneapolis; Pittsburgh; Detroit; Chicago; East Rutherford, New Jersey; Foxborough, Massachusetts; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Nashville; Houston; Tampa, Florida; Arlington, Texas; and Las Vegas. 

Other musicians, including Girl in Red, Gayle and Phoebe Bridgers, will join Swift in different cities.

International tour dates will be announced later.

Social media agony

Fans were irate about Tuesday's ticket snafu.

"Ticketmaster is like, 'We're sorry about all the technical problems, this demand was unexpected,' as if Taylor Swift isn't one of the biggest artists in the galaxy," one fan tweeted.

Not all fans weren't buying Ticketmaster's statement, either. 

"The demand literally can't be unexpected because they're the ones who sent out the presale codes lmao," one wrote. "Like, y'all picked the demand yourselves.  Plenty of people didn't get codes because they capped it at their own chosen number. I can't."

And some fans wanted Ticketmaster to waive its infamous service fees.

"(Waive). The. Service. Fees," one person wrote. "You didn't provide the service. It wasn't unprecedented. You knew how many presale codes."

Who's the problem?

Many people played off Swift's recent song, Anti-Hero, in which she sings, "It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me," blaming the problem on Ticketmaster.

Another person played off a different Anti-Hero lyric, writing, "Ticketmaster is in fact not a sexy baby."

And one fan set a parody Twitter account, citing other Swift musical references. 

"It's me! Hi! I'm the problem, it's me!" the person wrote. "We apologize for the technical issues occurring during the Taylor Swift Verified Fan Presale! We hope you can Shake It Off because You're On Your Own, Kid. (we will be fixing nothing)"