First, major technical difficulties disrupted Ticketmaster's Tuesday presale event for global musical superstar Taylor Swift's upcoming tour. Now, as of Thursday afternoon, the national ticket-seller is calling off the previously scheduled general public on-sale date, which was originally set for tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 18, at 10 a.m.
"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 company posted on its official Twitter account at 12 p.m. today.
So what does that mean for those who are still hoping to snag tickets to Swift's upcoming performance at Levi's Stadium on July 28 and 29, 2023? You can always head to the secondary market—though it will cost you. A quick scan of StubHub shows that even seats in the nosebleeds are running north of $600 at the moment.
In a blog post about the ordeal, Ticketmaster explained that its "Verified Fan" program—which requires individuals to pre-register and get a special code in order to participate in presales—was designed to prevent scalpers from using bots to hoover up tickets and resell them for a profit.
"By requiring registrations, Verified Fan is designed to help manage high-demand shows—identifying real humans and weeding out bots," Ticketmaster wrote in the post. "Keeping bots out of queues and avoiding overcrowding helps to make waits shorter and on sales smoother."
However, in the case of The Eras Tour—Swift's first since 2018's Reputation Tour—extremely high demand from genuine fans (both with and without Verified Fan accounts), and a surge in bot attacks, led to major delays on Tuesday.