Ticketmaster will sell new Taylor Swift tickets to some fans amid criticism

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Ticketmaster has announced plans to give a select group of Taylor Swift fans a second chance to buy tickets for the Eras singers’ tour, after thousands were disappointed last month when pre-sales were plagued to technical issues, with the live event site citing unprecedented demand.

Some fans who were eligible for the presale but failed to secure tickets received an email from Ticketmaster on Monday notifying them that they would be eligible to purchase up to two Swifts tour tickets.

You were identified as a fan who received a boost during the Verified Fan presale but did not purchase tickets, Ticketmaster said in a statement that echoed the language of its email, which the Washington Post examined. We apologize for any difficulties you may have experienced and the Taylors team has asked us to create this additional opportunity for you to purchase tickets.

Ticketmasters’ chaotic rollout of the pre-sale last month drew fierce criticism from fans, consumer groups and lawmakers and from Swift herself, as well as calls to investigate whether Ticketmaster had abused its dominant market position. Earlier this month, more than two dozen fans sued the company, alleging fraud, misrepresentation and antitrust violations.

Tennessee AG investigating Ticketmasters role in Taylor Swift ticket chaos

Under the terms of the latest sale, fans who received the email on Monday will receive an invitation sometime before Dec. 23 to register their interest in up to two tickets each, within a selected price range. But they are only eligible for tickets to the shows on the date they selected when registering for the verified fan presale last month.

To submit a claim, customers will need to provide Ticketmaster with their credit card details before they know if their claim has been accepted. Once a request has been approved, Ticketmaster will automatically charge customers’ cards for the price of their ticket or tickets.

The sale will be operated by Ticketstoday, a subsidiary of Live Nation Entertainment, which was formed following the merger of events company Live Nation and Ticketmaster in 2010.

Taylor Swifts Ticketmaster Collapse: What Happened? Who is to blame?

On Nov. 15, Ticketmaster opened its highly anticipated presale of tickets for Eras, Swift’s first tour in more than four years, to customers who signed up as verified fans. These customers received pre-sale codes, but ultimately faced hour-long virtual queues and technical issues. Some got tickets after an arduous process, but many others didn’t.

Ticketmaster later said that a staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic to our site, forcing the company to slow down some sales and repel others to stabilize systems. Ticketmaster estimated that 15% of interactions on the site encountered problems.

The company said it sold 2 million tickets for the Swifts tour, the most tickets ever sold for any artist in a single day.

Ticketmaster later canceled its sale to the general public, citing extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand. Fans who did not pre-register had to turn to the resale market. On Wednesday, on resale site StubHub, the price of a ticket for the May 7 Swifts show in Nashville ranged from $360 to $4,300.

Taylor Swift Blasts Ticketmaster for Eras Tour Rollout

On Monday, many fans shared screenshots of Ticketmaster’s email on social media and celebrated the possibility of seeing Swift on stage. But some expressed skepticism that they would actually have that chance. I don’t want to hope, wrote a Twitter user.

Ticketmaster did not respond to a Wednesday morning request from The Post to clarify its ticket prices and whether some fans who are eligible for additional ticket sales and have submitted a request may still be unable to get tickets due to a insufficient inventory.

Others who expected it but ultimately did not receive the Ticketmaster email expressed frustration at another missed opportunity. I’ve been a loyal Ticketmaster customer for ages and attended several Taylor concerts and was not selected, said a Twitter user.

Angry Taylor Swift fans mock Ticketmaster issues

Fans have been at the forefront of criticism of Ticketmaster following its pre-sale glitch, with many alleging the platform has a history of poor customer service and a tendency to charge high ticket prices.

The Justice Department was already investigating Ticketmaster before the Eras pre-sale fiasco, a person familiar with the matter told the Post last month. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. The Justice Department did not respond to a request Wednesday morning for further comment on the investigation and its parameters.

But experts told the Post that Swift could also bear some responsibility for the chaos surrounding its pre-sale, pointing out that it could have excluded resales that drive up prices and demand by forcing buyers to put their names on their tickets, or by fixing a fair. ticket prices to prevent prices from skyrocketing.

Representatives for Swift could not be reached for comment early Wednesday.

Julian Mark, Praveena Somasundaram, Sonia Rao and Perry Stein contributed to this report.

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