WASHINGTON — Taylor Swift is speaking out after all of the week's chaos surrounding the Ticketmaster sales for her upcoming stadium tour.
"There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how the situation can be improved moving forward," Swift said in a lengthy statement posted on Instagram Stories.
On Tuesday, a Verified Fan pre-sale event for her 52-date Eras Tour caused Ticketmaster's site to crash and left many fans without tickets. Those who did happen to get tickets had to deal with long online queues and error messages along the way.
Then, Ticketmaster said it was canceling Friday’s planned general public sale because it didn't haven’t enough inventory.
Swift noted Friday that she's brought many of the elements of her career in-house "to improve the quality of my fans experience by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do."
"It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse," she added.
Swift explained that she and her team had asked Ticketmaster multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand "and we were assured they could."
"It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them. And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing the songs," Swift said.
Ticketmaster previously said that two million tickets for Swift's 2023 tour were sold during presales on Tuesday, the most tickets ever sold on the platform in a single day.
Taylor Swift's Full Statement:
"Well. It goes without saying that I am extremely protective of my fans. We’ve been doing this for decades together and over the years, I’ve brought so many elements of my career in the house. I’ve done this specifically to improve the quality of my fans experience by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do. It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.
There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how the situation can be improved moving forward. I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we ask them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them. And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing the songs. Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means."