According to the Oxford dictionary, disappointment is defined as a sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations. That is how many people feel towards Ticketmaster following The Great War that was the presale and general sale of Taylor Swifts: The Eras Tour.  

Although issues surrounding Ticketmaster have only recently come to light, the platform’s been riddled with them long before Taylor Swift’s tickets went on sale. Despite the fact that this has been ongoing for years, it was The Eras Tour that began the public scrutiny that Ticketmaster currently faces. 

Supply<demand 

The first major issue that arose around buying tickets through Ticketmaster was the discrepancy between the amount of presale codes being sent out and the number of tickets actually available for purchase. More presale codes were sent out to fans than Ticketmaster had tickets to offer, not including the Capital One presale which allowed cardholders early access to tickets.  As a result, general sale was canceled, leaving no opportunity for fans without a code to buy tickets, and while that might sound like a champagne problem to some, for Swifties, it was just plain mean.

Queue issues 

Ticketmaster also encountered 3 major issues involving the queue. Spots in line were glitching, people with boosters were being sent to the back where they were forced to stay, stay, stay for a Treacherous amount of time, and people without presale codes were entering the queue. It left many people saying, I think there’s been a glitch, likely because  record breaking numbers of people were on Ticketmaster all at once, and it began to glitch and kick people out, before crashing all together. 

Loyal fans who thought they were out of the woods received the opportunity to boost themselves to the front of the line, but because Ticketmaster thought that these fans would buy more expensive tickets, they were sent to the back instead. Finally, because the presale codes only had to be entered before purchase and not before entering the queue, many people joined the queue without codes causing the site to overload and the lines to be further delayed.

No general sale/no SeatGeek

As previously mentioned, due to the oversell of presale tickets, Ticketmaster canceled general sale, which left many fans without a presale code or a Capital One card without any opportunity to get tickets. Not only was there no general sale, but because of Ticketmaster’s monopoly over the concert ticket selling industry, people were left with no other option but to try their luck with Ticketmaster, hoping they might be the lucky one.

Ticketmaster has proven itself the true mastermind and anti-hero, a nightmare dressed like a daydream, but hopefully in light of the current issues involving the site, it will improve for sales in the future.  Given their stance as the most dominant company in the ticket sale industry, we can only hope that they improve on their methods and leave fans feeling more satisfied down the line.